Struggles with prayer new pair a Christian. As a Christian I pray to
an unseen God. The creator of the universe hears my prayers and
responds in different ways. Either I get more peaceful about
something because I know that I lifted it up, or I have seen things
happen in people and things around me that could only have been done
by my God.
An example that I point to in my life happened when I was going to
college. My dad had arranged for me to be able to live in a one
bedroom house on my grandparents property. This is so that I could be
out of their house since I have lived in an apartment already and they
had moved my brother into the bedroom and there really wasn't another
bedroom for me to stay in. But it also gave me the freedom to live
without interrupting everything going on at my parents house. My
grandmother was very uptight because the little house had not been
lived in for quite some time and things had been overgrown behind it.
There was a shed in the corner of the property behind the little house
and plants and stuff had grown up around that shed to the point to
where you couldn't see the leak on the property. My grandmother
really wanted me to be able to see the leak. She would say that
repeatedly whenever I would visit with her and grandpa. And she would
tell mother that we really need to make it so David can see the lake.
I prayed about. I asked God to make it so that I can see the lake.
And I felt peace about giving that over to him waiting instead of
going out and starting the tear stuff down and spending days clearing
years of overgrowth.
A storm came through and my grandparents said that they heard
something that sounded an awful lot like a tornado in the
thunderstorm. But they wouldn't very much damage anywhere. And they
said that the little house was fine but the shed was gone. The shed
that was blocking my view of the lake was gone! I considered it an
answer to my prayer.
Now when I pray I talk to God about things and try to listen. I have
a folder on my cloud platform for storage where I keep text files,
each one a prayer request for a person, couple, or group. And in that
text file I have the details of what I'm praying for and record any
answers that seem to happen. It works well for me, because I recorded several answers to prayer.
But lately I've been struggling with a couple of things surrounding
prayer. I started meditating a couple of years ago. I resisted
meditation because it seems so new age and uncompatible with Christian
life. But as I've gotten into it and read more about it I am thinking
more and more of meditation as a time to listen to God. I quiet my
mind, I focus on my breathing, and I listen. I don't always get much
but at least I'm taking 10 minutes a day and making myself available
to hear. Do I expect God to speak to me in an all audible voice? No. But impressions and thoughts are always nice.
Of course that makes me wonder if I'm the one generating the thought
or if it's actually something that's coming from God. Always a
question, not really any answer about that. That's where I have to
lean on faith.
Another struggle that I'm having is ending every prayer with the words
"in Jesus name". When I read the Bible I read that Jesus is told his
disciples that whatever you ask for in my name will be done. A lot of
people take that to mean that he's like a genie and if you read your
Bible enough and you say the prayer in Jesus name enough that it will
happen. I tend not to think that because I know that people have free
will and it's hard to know who will do what and why they will do it
and whether God can overcome that or what or if he even should,.
There's a lot of times when people make choices that are pretty much
final and they know overcoming it and the repercussions will splash all over everybody around that person. Sad but true.
But neither do I like the having to say those three words at the end
of every prayer to make it a "real" prayer. I tend to pray in a
conversational way and I don't want to tell God what he is going to
do, remind him you know you did this and you did that and you said
this and so you have to do what I'm asking you to do right now. I
just never think of it that way. I hear a lot of people pray that way
and they raise their voices and they repeat it over and over and quote
Scripture in tie things into a nice neat bow so that God can't make
any choices except do exactly what they said to do. Those people tend
to be the most frustrated and the most disappointed that I know because it doesn't happen their way.
And so that's where I struggle. Praying and developing that
relationship with an unseen God and hope and have faith and then live
my life knowing that I may never see what I asked for and it may never
happen in my lifetime if it's not God's will is not going to happen
it's all very strange!
So I struggle with prayer. I pray. And then I go about my life. Fun!
