How I pray

I love to pray.

This week I had several days of "non-work" due to snow and such...I tried to do stuff, but ended up spending most of the time in prayer.

It was great...

Wasn't always this way.

It used to be great effort to pray.

I never felt like I prayed enough.

Never felt like it did much good...

Oh I had moments when I knew I connected, but for the most part I did not enjoy it and it seemed like warfare/work and not something fun, more something essential if I was to survive, so I did it in self preservation....which means I only prayed when I really had to.

All of that has changed...

...rather than tell you how I got here I will simply tell you what I do now.

My primary activity in prayer is just thanking God for who He is in my life...I start with some general thanks and praise, I try to articulate something more than "You are glorious", I really attempt to connect His Glory to some facet of His current activity in my life and declare my gratitude for what He's doing...then I wait...


...and wait...a little more...

Sure the crisis thoughts (head noise) try to crowd in and dominate my mental activity, but when they do I just go back to thanking Him for who he is even in those situations...

So I thank him...I thank Him some more...I tell Him I love Him...I worship Him a bit...and then I ask Him what He wants me to pray...

See it really is kind of rude to dominate the conversation with someone as High as He is, His majesty alone should shut us up, and frankly when I ponder His greatness my issues seem to take a diminished importance in the room...I wait to hear from Him about how and what I am to pray, rather than impress Him with my language and thoughts, I am learning to wait for His thoughts and His ways...

Frankly, He doesn't say many words, but He says a tremendous amount in the few phrases/verses/pictures that He impresses to my spirit...

Once I know what He wants me to pray, I pray it several different ways.

I declare it to myself, I sing it to Him, I cry aloud and lift my voice, I meditate and consider what He is asking me to to ask Him, I look up verses He gives and pray them back to Him, I express in all my persona the prayer I receive from Him.

Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it takes only moments, but when I do connect with the prayer He wants me to pray, there is a confidence and a faith quotient that is not possible from my own human efforts.

It is fun.

I have no idea where it will go.

He always surprises me, and He is radically consistent with all the ways He has dealt with me throughout the years.

I am deeply aware that He is present and wants me to partner with Him...He has a plan and an agenda that includes my faith and my character being fully challenged and developed as I choose His prayer for me to pray.

I now keep pretty serious prayer journals that coincide with my prophetic journals...and I usually maintain a very high focus on my inheritance and life verses, because God will continue to grow the revelation of who I am and who I am to be based upon what He has always said to me...see prayer is more about changing me than anything else...and if I approach prayer as some way to strong arm or manipulate Him to do something for me...well that just seems rude and ungrateful...and how can I have intimacy with someone if I'm trying to manipulate them?

True love creates liberty, and liberty is just another way to say "options" and as I love Him I want to give Him every option in my life that is possible...even the impossible options...

...and my Father seems to enjoy the free will offering of options...when He's in charge He gets to pick the menu...

"He sets a table for me in the presence of mine enemies..."

Prayer is exciting this way...makes me wanna go pray right now...

Thanks Dad.