learning to pray

the writers of the Old Testament had a much different concept of their relationship with God than we have today. when the scribes who copied the Old Testament Scriptures wrote the word for God, Yahweh, they would throw away their pen, never to use it again. they reasoned that once it had written the word Yahweh, the pen was disqualified to write anything else.

- Prayer the Great Adventure, Dr. David Jeremiah

that, my friends, is one of the coolest things that i have ever read in my life.

so many times we refer to God as "the big man upstairs" or "the big guy". God is so awesome and so majestic and so much more than terms such as this. we're talking about the Creator of the universe and everything in it we refer to him with such familiarity and flippancy.

its true that he is our Heavenly Father, but he is also all powerful and mighty.

our God truly is an awesome God.

so yesterday's entry was really bad. i apologize to my legions of faithful readers.

i really am sorry. i wanted to write, i just couldnt for some reason. not that all of my other entries are good or anything, but they are usually better than that. i hope anyway.

the book that i am reading is incredible. i am only about halfway through with it and my prayer life has already improved tremendously.

yesterday when i was reading, i read a part about praying the most when we are busy. dr. jeremiah said something like on days when he is the busiest, he spends the most time in prayer. and when he does so, all the things that he needed to do during the day seem to get done in one way or another. people that he needed to call end up calling him, he runs into other people that he needed to talk to in the store, and he finishes things quickly that would normally take him hours to do.

even though i got up on time this morning, i got out of the shower late. i only had a few minutes to split between praying and reading my bible before i had to leave to go to work.

so, i got down on my knees at the foot of my bed like i usually do every morning and started praying. except this morning, i really prayed. i realize that i really dont know how to pray, but i do it the only way that i know how. i actually went through all the parts of prayer that you are supposed to; acclamation, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, and surrender.

and when i had finished i looked up and it was about 20 minutes later than when i started. i think thats the longest that i have ever prayed. i didnt even have any time left to read my bible.

but everything that i had to do today somehow got done. i studied for my test, read a lot in my book, finished most of my lesson for the retreat, and so many other things. it was awesome.

not only that, but i felt so...complete after i finished praying. i mean, like i was saying, God is the almighty Creator of the universe, and i had his undivided attention for a twenty minute conversation. to me, thats just awesome.

when i first learned that i was going to be teaching on worship and prayer, i wasnt really happy about the prayer part. i thought that i could talk for well over an hour on worship, and i still can. and i thought that i would spend about ten minutes on prayer.

now, i feel like i could talk for days about prayer alone and i just really learned how to pray myself. isnt that weird. God rocks like that.

i really dont have a lot else to talk about. i mean, im kind of like the scribes. once i've spent all this time talking about God, nothing else even seems worthy of mentioning.

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