Conversation With God
Prayer, Part 1
My youngest son has Down Syndrome. Communication isn’t his strong point. He is very sociable, but he isn’t good at having deep conversations. As a little kid, he knew no strangers. He talked to anyone and everyone. He was goofy. He did cute baby talk to flirt with older girls. As he grew farther into his teen years, he came to the realization that this baby talk and foolish talk wasn’t appropriate, but he hadn’t mastered a proper conversation. It made him shy. When we would have people over, he would frequently hide just outside the room, listening, but not being seen or heard, because he wanted to be part of the conversation, but didn’t know how to join in.
I think many of us feel this way with God. We are told “pray without ceasing;” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), but we don’t know what to say. We feel that we shouldn’t pester God with our little cares because He has more important things to do, but this isn’t true.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)
The NKJV says “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” God doesn’t want to just hear about your death defying emergencies. He wants to hear from you about how your day is going, good or bad. He wants to hear about everything you care about, just like good parents do. Parents don’t tell their kids, “I don’t care what is going on at school.” Instead they do everything they can to drag out of their kids how their day went (even when they heard some details from another source), what they did, and what problems they are having. It isn’t that God doesn’t know. He wants to hear it from us because “He cares for you.”
When I was a young Christian, I only brought my really big cares to God. I didn’t want to bother Him with my minor cares. They seemed too insignificant for His awesomeness. We need to remember that not only does God love us more than our parents, He also can listen to and solve every problem of every person in the world over all of history at the same time. We aren’t interrupting something more important. He isn’t like me who gets frazzled if pulled in too many directions at once. Intently listening to and answering all of the prayers in the world is easy for Him. It is what He loves to do.
When 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, “pray without ceasing,” it doesn’t mean that God expects us to spend every second of every days on our knees praying. It means we should have a way about life of including Him in everything. Our relationship should be a little like an old married couple who go about their business, but interject a comment about what is going on, what they found interesting, what concerns them, plans, etc. It isn’t that the couple never stops talking to each other, but they do include each other in their thoughts and in everything that matters to them.
With prayer we can have lots of different kinds of prayer. Sometimes we have a deep heart to heart that might be the traditional fervent prayer on our knees, but more often it includes a quick comment to God, a quick request when something comes to mind, a quick “help me” that might not be more specific than that. God knows what we need without a detailed description. In reality, I’ve learned that the best way to ask for help is to share your need and let God solve it in His way. He does a much better job than we do. We don’t get His best when we always pray for the solution we want. He knows better than us what we need.
We may get intimidated when we hear someone stand up and give a big eloquent prayer in front of everyone, but we don’t have to be eloquent. We just have to be honest with God. Although there is a place for the eloquent public prayer, we also need to master the personal, private prayer with God.
We want to fit prayer into our daily lives. One thing I’ve found that helped me get started with including prayer throughout my day was associating prayer with various things I do every day. Say a quick good morning prayer first thing when you get up and ask for God’s help focusing your day on what is truly important. Pray before meals. Pray before bed. Pray with your family before the kids go to bed. There may be other things you do every day that you can link to prayer. My eldest son prays when he gets into his car before he drives off. (I probably should add that to my list).
When someone mentions a personal concern, whether it is mentioned as a prayer request or not, use this as an opportunity to pray for them immediately. Ask them, “can I pray for you now?” If the time isn’t appropriate for a public prayer, you can still throw up a quick “please help them, God.”
The more you incorporate these little prayers into your life, the more natural it will become. The more these little prayers, comments, requests, thanks, and praises will become a natural part of your relationship with God.
Hopefully you can start fitting more prayer into your life.
Trust Jesus.
your sister in Christ,
Christy
FYI, I’ll do another post with more information on prayer. I’m trying to make my posts a little shorter and more accessible because we all live busy lives.
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