Prayer.
The most awesome experience or the driest place ever?
I don't care really!
I have learned (and still am learning) to get down to it.
As much as possible.
Whatever I feel.
whatever is going down around me.
So in a "lost in God" moment this morning in the ultra-charged prayer room 1 at Sanctuary 21 Durham, I massively felt God prompt me to share some stuff about prayer today.
That usually means this is for someone out there today!
I used to really dislike prayer.
My experience of it for the most part of prayer amounted to sitting in a circle waiting in absolute trepidation for my turn to come round, and rehearsing what I would say like mad so that I at least wouldn't sound daft.
An interesting fact though is that when I look back I had a more interesting prayer life when I wasn't a Christian than in my initial years as a Christian.
I can remember before I got into any groove with God in terms of relationship, asking him all kinds of stuff and speaking to him wherever and whenever I wanted, even though I didnt really know who I was talking to. So in the first year of my life with God in it, when I was required to pray, I found it so completely and insanely difficult.
Possibly because I started going to prayer meetings!
I guess I can say now that I lost the freedom I had experienced years ago by relegating God to set periods of times.
That meant that developing my relationship with Jesus after my initial explosive encounter with Him was let's just says, well, tough.
Because.
And I say this with experiential certainty.
If we don't put prayer at the centre of our relationship, then we aren't really having one.
Are we?
I realised this more than ever when my old man died.
I had a distant relationship with my own Dad. Without going into a whole story, let's just say we didn't hit it off.
Until he was dying.
I knew at whatever cost, and because of Jesus, I needed to reconcile my relationship with my earthly father while there was still time.
And inside I was having a bit of a battle because I still had a bit of anger hanging around towards him from the past.
During those days as I started to visit him, eventually sitting with him and sorting it out, and then finally being able to say goodbye to him in his final hours, I began to talk to God (without thinking) like I used to, only this time I really knew him. I talked to him and listened for his voice.
I kept getting, what I call 'lost in God.'
I found that prayer is best served in abundance.
In other words its best to just work at it.
Constantly.
its OK to pray in meetings or quiet times. But really we are better making sure we do not relegate God to a quiet time or a prayer meeting.
in those early years, I had to pray through some kind of barrier.
Now I find it has become ingrained into my way of life.
I mean I could write all those amazing cliches down like, No great revival has happened without prayer etc, and really those sayings are true, but in my experience prayer isn't always a fantastic experience.
It can be hard.
It can be dry.
It can be seemingly fruitless.
Yet?
it can be amazing.
It can be crazy.
it can be sumptuous.
whatever it is?
It has to be done.
otherwise?
Our relationship development, our holiness adventure, will never take off.
Ever.
God's side of the relationship is forever assured.
So what about our side of the relationship?
Now guys, if there is a point to this blog post (It feels like God has taken over the virtual keys of my iPad!) I think it possibly is a timely reminder for us to look at our relationship with God.
And ask ourselves are we really praying?
Is prayer relegated to a slot here and there or is it the life and soul of our relationship with God, in good and bad times?
As i've reflected today on my own prayer life, I can only say this, I want to pray, I love to pray, I now understand that it is vital to pray. A mate of mine says that prayer is a relentlessness that isn't an option.
I agree with him.
If you haven't prayed for a while, why not drop what you are doing and do it right now. If you are battling with prayer and find it hard, especially in times of great difficulty, drop that battle now.
And.
Don't get caught up in the barbed wire of the expectations of cut and dried answers.
Oh no.
Trust God to answer.
Not our feelings on the right answer.
Instead get lost in God.
It's the only way.
