When I Pray I Feel...

     I'm feeling the blah's of a busy season and when I pray there's no magic relief!   I wish there was, but there's not.  When my Dad was dying, I prayed and the journey didn't get easy.  I wish it did, but it didn't.  When people are stressful (I call them EGR - extra grace required -- people & situations) I pray, often for them, and God's way of love and for me, and they don't suddenly get all warm and fuzzy or compliant.  I wish it were so, but it isn't.  So why pray?
      I pray to stay connected to God...something bigger than me. (Here's some info about prayer.)  It seems to me that a God big enough to love me with amazing creativity in creation, persistence in Jesus, and effectiveness over thousands of years, is someone who's got a better handle on things that I do.  (And I haven't found a better handle on life stuff.)  So I want to stay connected.  In that desire, practice and journey, I get changed for the better.  God does stuff that I couldn't see before.  And I find prayers answered in familiar and surprising ways.
      I pray to let God change me.  I need you to know I'm not an on-my-knees, head-bowed, hands-folded, kind of pray-er.  I walk and pray.  I write and pray.  I draw and pray.  I play music and pray.  I think and pray.  I cry and pray.  I sigh and  pray. And, once in a while, I bow-my-head-fold-my-hands and pray.  (Here's some back info on ways to pray.)  It's messy, sometimes mundane, often without immediate reward, frequently one step in a long journey, and always (in hindsight) powerful.

     Today I am wrestling with life on the inside of my head and soul.  I came across an article called "Why Pray?"  and was reminded to pray.  I was connected to God through a prayer: while reading the article, while writing this blog post, while waiting in my own discomfort, and while thinking about practical solutions to life's stuff.  Maybe I need to go take a walk?!  Thanks for starting my prayer time with me.
     If you want to:

• engage about prayer, 
• share a thought about prayer, 
• know someone else is praying with you for a prayer request, 
• offer a strongly or wonderingly held belief about prayer, 
• pursue a sincere question about prayer, 
• confront a deal-breaking or heart-breaking frustration about prayer,

... anything, then go ahead, right now, right here.  I'd love to share in that holy, prayerful conversation with you. Peace on the Journey.
     

Journey at Home

     I've shared many miles and places in my blog.  For my travels I've depended on my GPS to get me from place to place.  Today it's time for the more challenging journey.  Driving miles and exploring cities has challenges, but none so delicate and dangerous as that of our own heart...my own heart.
     My bible reading this morning was not encouraging me.  A little prophetic bluster from Isaiah, left me pondering my own brokenness; a little psalmatic (if that's a word) despair--not so cheery on it's face; and then the words of Jesus in Matthew 7.  Here I thought would be the upswing and instead I got caught in the underbrush of my heart.
     I don't know about you, but it's easy for me to be hard on myself...harder than I ever am on others.  So I read "Don't judge so that you won't be judged" and got tangled in my moments of discontent with others rather than the intent of the passage of a gracious balanced look at all (self included).
     I read "For everyone who asks, receives.  Whoever seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door is opened." and went to that ludicrous place of wondering why a wish-granting God wasn't doing that for me, when I know the passage is about the power of an honest, open, interactive relationship with the Holy, with Love, with Jesus, with God.
    I read "You will know them by their fruit" and I whinned to myself about not being fruitfull enough from a western, Type A personality, things productivity, kind of place, when I know the passage has more to do with character than with profits of people, dollars or things.
    Here's the big point.  I needed to make the journey.  It took me about 75 minutes this morning, to read, reflect, pray, grab a few commentaries on line, reflect, digest, pray, process and come out on the other side.  Now, no longer discouraged, rather strengthened from my morning devotional time.  Now, a little less wandering and a little more on a focused inward adventure.  And the
     The kicker is this.  Tomorrow I may need to do it all over again.   Perhaps in the same way, or maybe sitting quietly in prayer and reflection for the same time, or possibly singing songs or serving or something else.  I don't always know how it will unfold, but I know I need...I do better with...my adventure is safer, more productive, more satisfying when...to spend that time with God.  Each day is part of an adventure for which I need my GPS (Grow, Pray, Study  or, if you like, God Positioning System) of the scriptures, prayer, companions on the journey.
    The reward is this.  It works.
    What inward adventures of the Spirit have you had lately?