Praying Our Lives
Twice today in the space of about 15 minutes God reminded me about simplicity. First I met a woman who had a garage full of stuff and talked about needing to get rid of things. She knows the need; now she needs the courage to do it. Next I read a post called “Redefining Simple Living: Enjoying the Things You Love” and can be found at Simple Mom.
These incidents made me think of our prayers to God. Do we feel we need to set aside a time to pray; to say the right things; to speak “holy”; or to be reverent? All of those things are good. But simplifying our idea of prayer might take our communication with our Lord to a new dimension.
What if we learned to just talk – like we do with a good friend or parent or sibling? What if we laid out exactly what is on our minds? Do you think marvelous things might happen? I do.
God says in His Word that we are to come to Him. In Born to be Wild, Ed Underwood makes this clear.
“Then they [the members of a Christian group he had joined] began to talk to God about people, some of the people I knew. I guessed that this must be how they prayed. Didn’t sound like any prayer I had ever heard at Grandma Sister Patrick’s little country church. It was just conversation …” [page 35].
Conversation is the key word here. We simply come and talk to God.
“Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live” (1Thessalonians 5:16-18, The Message).
Prayer becomes simple when we pray our lives (talk to God all the time) rather than say our prayers.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, help us to open our lives to You. We know that You know all about us, but desire us to talk to you about our lives. Help us to simplify our prayers so that we can pray our lives. In Jesus’ name. AMEN.
