3rd Sunday: Prayer

Well, I just finished reading a book a good friend of mine let me borrow: Too Busy Not To Pray. I have to say, I loved it, and I would recommend it to anyone. It's very simple, a very quick read, but it has so much good information: it walks you through the things everyone asks about prayer and encourages you to really put your whole heart and faith into a practice that seems almost insignificant in this busy, work-driven life. But the author brings up a lot of Scripture to support every point he makes, along with personal anecdotes that prove the value and power of prayer, why it is so important and what it takes to do it "right" without any barriers between you and God.

I liked it a lot, and while some of it I already 'knew,' it never hurts to learn something so important more than once. There is very little that is more important than communicating with God, both talking and listening to Him, yet few people actually take time out of their schedules to do it. I think it reflects a kind of buried feeling that He isn't real or important. Maybe we believe in Him on one level, but part of us is so earth-based, so sensory, bound by time, space and matter, that it still thinks "I can't see or hear God, so He can't exist or have any influence my life."

I sense this feeling inside of me when I get wrapped up in the business of life, even though I have loved Jesus since elementary school. It is easy to believe in Jesus as a distant spiritual being, to believe in Heaven as an idea or ideal fantasy place, but when you truly believe to the point that you acknowledge His influence in the material world and His power over everything that exists and incorporate Him into your life, it seems ridiculous to NOT pray. And the truth is that God DOES have that kind of power and influence, even while we can't see or feel Him, He is always in control. It just takes effort on OUR part to reach out to Him, to just bridge that last little distance separating us from Him, because God has been reaching down to us since the beginning, bridging most of the space between us.

And I think that that kind of faith--the kind where you trust in God's presence and power at more than just the distant spiritual level--takes effort and conditioning, or at least it has for me. I can't expect to develop it without trying, so I have to pray even when I don't feel like it or when I don't feel connected to God at all. Just starting a prayer initiates a connection, and putting in effort to focus on the prayer, and getting used to the idea and feeling of praying, is an important step to developing a strong faith and prayer-life, because when you pray, God is listening even when you don't feel or believe that He is, and He will infuse His peace and love in you so that you have the strength and desire to pray again, because He loves his children coming to Him and wants to encourage you to come. Just make that first prayer--really give it a genuine effort--and see what happens.

There is so much more that could be said, but the book did such a great job of explaining things that it seems silly to try to repeat it.