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Motivations to Pray
My reasons for encouraging you to pray are…
1. God is worth knowing. The wonder, beauty, intrigue and mystery of God is worth discovering. God’s personality, humor, interest and wisdom are “out of this world” and worth the effort.
2. Knowing God changes the way you see yourself and the world. If you are tired of the media telling you what your future is, if you are weary of looking at the same old you in the mirror; try spending time with God and learning to see through His eyes.
3. Joy, delight, peace are some of the emotions that keep me going back to the Master. I find that when the weight of this life is too great, God lightens the load and restores my soul. God is good company.
4. God is like no other person I know, He is lovingly truthful. Both His love and truth are so real that they often hurt, but my soul loves such truth. God has no need to spin His answers or conceal His emotions toward me. When I encounter the negative emotions of God it is the most loving thing possible. And when I encounter His love He does not shield me from my faults, weakness and sin. God does not use false praise, trifling kindness.
5. I don’t need to hide what I am feeling or thinking from God, He already knows. I find that God, while being the most powerful being in the world, also allow the most truthfulness from those who talk to them. Unlike worldly powers that need to be appeased or “respected,” God allows you to come in your raw emotions and let it all out. I have no intention on disrespecting God, but when my own pain and small mindedness gushes out and I do dishonor Him, He endures it and redeems it. That is, He redeems it if I allow Him to.
6. God is an all-consuming fire, holy, fearful, un-controllable and not like anything you have even engaged before. He hides to make Himself seen and shows up to do nothing but be with you. God answers your most consuming questions with a whisper and yells at you some insight of momentary pleasure. God has you search for years something He could tell you in a moment and tells you in a moment things you could not understand if you spent your whole life searching.
7. I love prayer, talking to God.
2. Knowing God changes the way you see yourself and the world. If you are tired of the media telling you what your future is, if you are weary of looking at the same old you in the mirror; try spending time with God and learning to see through His eyes.
3. Joy, delight, peace are some of the emotions that keep me going back to the Master. I find that when the weight of this life is too great, God lightens the load and restores my soul. God is good company.
4. God is like no other person I know, He is lovingly truthful. Both His love and truth are so real that they often hurt, but my soul loves such truth. God has no need to spin His answers or conceal His emotions toward me. When I encounter the negative emotions of God it is the most loving thing possible. And when I encounter His love He does not shield me from my faults, weakness and sin. God does not use false praise, trifling kindness.
5. I don’t need to hide what I am feeling or thinking from God, He already knows. I find that God, while being the most powerful being in the world, also allow the most truthfulness from those who talk to them. Unlike worldly powers that need to be appeased or “respected,” God allows you to come in your raw emotions and let it all out. I have no intention on disrespecting God, but when my own pain and small mindedness gushes out and I do dishonor Him, He endures it and redeems it. That is, He redeems it if I allow Him to.
6. God is an all-consuming fire, holy, fearful, un-controllable and not like anything you have even engaged before. He hides to make Himself seen and shows up to do nothing but be with you. God answers your most consuming questions with a whisper and yells at you some insight of momentary pleasure. God has you search for years something He could tell you in a moment and tells you in a moment things you could not understand if you spent your whole life searching.
7. I love prayer, talking to God.
Those are some of my motivations to pray. How I acquired
those desires is the result of living life, not scheming. I have planned to
build houses and churches. I have studied and develop strategies for disciplining
others and serving in ministry. At one point in time I even planned out my own
pathway for spiritual growth. The only thing was that God has His own plans.
God’s plan was called “daily life.” It isn’t
that disciplines don’t matter, they are just incomplete.
When I discovered that my daily life was God’s method of disciplining
me, I found prayer much easier. When the car broke down it was a call to pray
about equipment. When a disagreement erupted in relationships, it was a call to
pray about conflict, hope, love and restoration. When I was in need of money, or
help, a job, or a direction; all these were calls to prayer and fellowship with
God.
Distractions are what keep us from prayer. Most Christians
“want to” pray but are distracted. But when our distractions are the reasons
for prayer, we pray more. One barrier that must be overcome is the form of
prayer. We all have a mindset that judges what acceptable prayer is and what it
is not. Is prayer conversation or must it be petitions, can you sing or write a
lament? The “prayer without ceasing” of 1 Thessalonians 5:17 amounts to living
a life that is always in conversation with God. This is not difficult.
Most of us already know what it is like to have our mind
filled with “self-talk” as we go throughout the day. We judge and desire, we love
and hate, and we dream of better things and fill our thoughts of regret as we
go about busy daily life. Unending prayer is developing the habit of not
excluding the Lord from this inner life.
By turning our thoughts on Him we commune with Him as we journey through
the day’s events. But you can’t get to
communing with God daily without specific time spent in His presence. It seems weird,
I know, but it seems to be historically proven.
Those who try to arrive at continual prayerful communion with
God through the effort of daily ongoing prayer, seldom arrive. Those who spend
large amounts of time in listening, silence, solitude, reflection and meditation
seem to develop “unending prayer” quickly. It may be what I call “God’s rule of
inversion.” If you want a great outer life, invest in the inner. If you want to
be exalted, seek to humility. If you want to be rich, freely give. If you want life, surrender your life to the
Master. Invest in the opposite may be overstating the matter, but you get the
idea.
For the wilderness, separated from our daily duties and
people, is the landscape which seems best suited for developing a relationship with
God. For most of us the prayer meeting, prayer group and prayer room are just too
filled with distractions. We find ourselves connecting to the things of this
world (music, people, temperature, art, singing, and prayer book) and lose hold
of divine connections. When we learn to
be alone with God we also learn to be with Him in a busy daily life. The love
for God that is developed in the hidden place flows into our whole life.
My final thought to help you find energy to pray is a call
to the ORDINARY. Ordinary is the common,
“everyman.” To be ordinary is to live a great life in the commonality. While
many seek to motivate followers of Jesus to be radical, exceptional; the truth
is that most of us are common. We are people, just like the people of the
Bible, who fish and sew, work a job and pay our taxes. We share a common desire
for love, joy, hope and peace. We share a common God and the indwelling Holy
Spirit. Most of our callings are common. We worship and fast, evangelize and
serve in the food pantry as everyday men and women in Christ service. By embracing
the ordinary we remove from ourselves the burden of extraordinary prayer. This is not a call to love-less-ness toward
God. But a call to pray wonder filled prayers out of simple devotion to Christ
Jesus.
Send me a link to any good books or resources that will help with the life of prayer and following the Master. When I hear from others it helps me to see more of what God is doing in this world.
Consider following me on this blog, that will be like excepting an invitation for ongoing prayer nagging. If you like a blog why not share it with others.
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