Tools

God has been talking with me about prayer lately.  A lot.  I feel inadequate when I pray corporately and I can sense that feeling of inadequacy in others when they pray, too.  I have been told my friends feel the same way.  I love my intimate times alone with God and feel very protective of them.  I guard that intimacy — I don’t talk to him around others the way I do when it is just us.  But then I never talked to my husband around others like I did when it was just us, either.  And really, I guess I don’t talk to close friends the same way when I am in a group that I do when we are one on one. 

I want to learn more about prayer.  Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer and he admonished us often to pray.  God gives lots of direction on prayer in the Bible.  It seems to me that there are a lot of scriptures that tell us to “call on me” “seek my face”  “ask of the Lord” and a few that tell us to actually “do” anything.  It is so difficult to rely on and trust God.  Why are we so stubbornly convinced we are self-reliant?  I remember my nephews at two years of age pulling away and saying “I do it!”  We’ve all been saying the same thing to God ever since.  It takes maturity and humility to realize we CAN NOT and our best efforts are not nearly enough!

One of the things I feel instinctively about prayer is that it is powerful — not genie in the bottle, Santa’s bag powerful — powerful to put me in God’s perfect will.  It is strange to me that God has given us this amazing, powerful tool for centuries and the church has not used it, or few have learned how to use it.  I was telling a friend of mine the other night that the way I use prayer is like using my Blackberry to drive nails.  My BlackBerry has the ability to take photos, video, record sound, maintain a calendar, send and receive emails, play games, browse the web, and many other things.  But it would be a waste if all I ever did with it was to drive nails into the wall with it.  I feel like in many ways, I am wasting the power of prayer that way.

My pastor suggested I read a book on prayer by E.M. Bounds.  I am reading it and studying the scripture on prayer.  I’ll let you know when I start taking advantage of the other features.