breathe.

the idea of prayer has been bombarding me recently. what i mean is this:

as a person seeking after Christ’s heart, i pray. rather, i say i pray. honestly, it’s more like an unfortunate trip to goodwill. you walk in, stoked to get a flannel shirt or some corduroy pants to cut-off (only if you’re hip, of course.) and all you find are clothes that are way too big for you to possibly put on and not look like a goof ball.

if that example isn’t doing anything for you, read matthew twentysix: thirtysix – fortysix. in fact, you should definitely read that, it makes much more sense.

i find it interesting that Jesus didn’t bring tell His disciples to pray and be supportive of Him, rather He just brought them to the garden. they had been around for long enough to realize what it meant; you go to the garden to pray. and of course, Jesus knowing what He was about to go through, would want the support of some of His closest friends. so when He returns to find them sleeping, naturally He would be upset.

if i were to be put into that situation, i doubt the outcome would be any different. the idea of prayer becomes very routine in our lives. we throw in a few words that sound really spiritual, ask for things that we probably want more than we need (but promise they are for good reasons) and tack on an amen at the end. we have almost made an exact formula to it, making it impossible to connect to God. it almost becomes useless, and then we start to wonder why He isn’t answering us…

for the most part, the routine goes:
i’m about to eat: i pray.
i’m about to go to sleep: i pray.
i’m doing a quiet time: i pray.
i’m living my regular daily life: i don’t pray.

there is a fundamental problem here. if prayer is when not only i am communicating with God, but more importantly, He is talking to me, it is outrageous to ever not be in prayer. prayer should be every second of every day. i find it hard to believe that i would ever want to live a portion of my life without God, but if my communication with Him is cut off by me, it ain’t gonna happen.

but why? what does it mean to live a life of prayer? i think i can’t do it because i’ve never really understood prayer. the idea of prayer i have come to know is based completely off of tradition within the church, which gives us false ideas of how to do it.

way back in the day, jews and whatnot would pray all together three times a day. these weren’t the only three times they prayed, just when they prayed together as a community. instead, their entire lives were of prayer, and this was just a time of coming together. but unfortunately, it was a good tradition to keep passing on, to the point where is became acceptable to pray sporadically rather than live in it.

when God first opened my eyes to what prayer was supposed to be, i honestly didn’t understand a bit. living a life of the prayer we have come to known sounds like it would be incredibly boring. but i think that is where another one of our misconceptions comes in. we view prayer as heads bowed, hands together, eyes clothes. sure that sort of prayer in important (prayer within a community), but it’s certainly not limited to that. living a life of prayer is going to school. it’s eating lunch with friends. it’s spending time alone to listen. it’s thanking God for the food we ate at lunch. it’s doing everything, but with God on our lips. it’s doing everything, but in constant communication with Him. it’s duteronomy six: five – nine.

i say my prayer has become goodwill-like. we’ve got what we think to be the best of intentions. but for some reason, we are unknowing of our selfishness in prayer. our prayer life simply exists only when we want something out of God. and it’s just not doing anything for me anymore.

let’s change.