Lately I've been praying a little more, which is by no means bragging. I'm talking about praying once a day instead of once a week. I really suck at prayer, which is sad because my theology makes prayer insanely important. Regardless, this has led to a few thoughts on prayer that I will now share.
1. It is hard to pray when you're really into theology. I find myself all the time when I'm praying thinking things like, "wait, I just prayed for something that I don't believe God would do" or things like that. Half the time I find myself analyzing anything I am going to say to make sure it lines up with what I believe about God. I think this is something I am going to try to stop doing. I don't want to pray in ignorance, but I also want my praying to be more natural. This leads to the next thought.
2. I have been taking Lydia to the people who take care of her during the day (our pals Angie and Chris, Big Up Yourselves). I hear it's good to talk to babies, so I often carry on conversations with Lydia in the car. I realized the other day that the feeling I have while I am talking to Lydia is the same as when I am talking to God...namely that I am carrying on a conversation with myself because I am talking to a being that can't respond to me. Let me be clear, I DO NOT believe that this is how it actually is with God. Instead, this is how it feels. These are the only two relationships in my life where I do not hear any audible response from the person I am talking to. I think that's why prayer is so hard for me. I'm not very ethereal.
3. A few weeks ago we were praying (Erika, Lydia and I) and many times I feel like I systematically think through what I need to thank God for and what I need to ask Him for and all that (the asking part is about other people, I'm not sure how I feel about praying for ourselves, at least about certain things, see number 1) and then I wrap it up and call it a night. Erika was praying and at the time she was feeling overwhelmed by life and feeling some ground-level aspects of depression. As she was asking God for help with this she started weeping. Then I started crying because I thought, here is God's daughter crying desperately before Him for comfort while I emotionlessly go through my list of stuff to talk to God about. I want to be more like Erika, laying bare my heart and soul before the God who loves me more than I know. I had this amazing image of God telling Erika that his heart was broken for her.
Those are my thoughts. Read it and weep.
2 comments:
I hear ya on all those comments. Prayer seems to be a difficult thing for me to remain consistent doing. I did a learning contract on it here at seminary, but have slacked off since then (by the way, i also did a learning contract on working out which has been thrown to the wayside). Honestly, i think that a lot of what keeps me from praying as intently as I should is fear. I fear the response of God to my continual sin and I think that deep down inside I worry that God will just conclude that enough is enough. I know that theologically this doesn't make sense, but I think I equate my own judgment of myself with what God's should be. Thanks for sharing Ryan. May we all learn to honestly cry, laugh, joke, and engage deeply in prayer.
I think that one of my greatest fear is that what I'm feeling or going through is isolated to myself or that no one has experienced what I'm going through.
I just wanted to say that you are not alone and that in my own insufficient prayer life I will be bringing you before the throne of grace.
Post a Comment