Prayer

I've never stopped to think about prayer. What is it? A little thing you say when you don't know where to turn? Something that is required of our faith? I think its so much more than that, prayer is your heart pouring out, your spirit talking to The Most High. How cool is that? Prayer is endless, it had no rules. It is freedom from our flesh. Just you and God talking. Dang, thats amazing stuff.

The beauty of prayer has no limits - its as easy as singing a song from your heart. Worshiping God, giving Him thanks for keeping His promise to us. We can ask Him of anything and know that He can do anything. Of course, that doesn't mean He will, He will do His will, always. But the comfort of knowing He is there and He is listening to us. Let me say that again . . . He is listening to us, us who are nothing compared to Him. He is so incredible!

Prayer really pulls us closer to God - it tunes us into the spirit and that is when I think we listen to God. A lot of the time when we say God isn't speaking to us, I think, I could be wrong, but I think that He is and that we just don't hear Him. Some Jews like going through their prayers from a siddur. I have one, and I think its helpful because sometimes we want to say things that we aren't sure how to say. If you look at a siddur, it's a big book! Its amazing going through it and seeing all the prayers for everything. Morning prayers to evening prayers - its amazing. Its beautiful! "I gratefully thank You, O living and eternal King, for You have returned my soul within me with compassion - abundant is Your faithfulness!" This is a simple prayer upon arising. Before I read this I never thought about thanking God for returning my soul within my body in the morning. I just wake up and usually complain about how early it is, or how I hate waking up. When really we should see it as a blessing that we are waking up at all. Though, I don't think we should be emotionlessly reading a prayer, rather read the prayer and see how it moves you into other prayers.

Even if we don't have words to say, Romans 8: 26-27 tells us that the Spirit knows, speaking in tongues is like the perfect prayer, it is too deep for words of our own. I know some people who speak in tongues actually do speak another language and the things they say in that language are amazing - and they have no clue what they're saying. His Spirit is powerful and through prayer we can see that power.

In conclusion - I think prayer is amazing. It nourishes our souls, it revives our spirits. It leads us closer to God and keeps us from tripping up so much. I think it would be cool to pray a few times everyday, even if it's while your at work, school, home; just a silent little prayer its amazing how close it can keep you to God, how focused you are just on Him, which is the most important thing - staying focused on Him. The more I pray throughout the day the more shalom I have. The more connected to God, the more I listen, the more I don't care about the worldly things that we carry - it just all melts away. Hallelujah! He is good.

Philippians 4:6-7

Don't worry about anything; on the contrary, make your requests known to God by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving. Then God's shalom, passing all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with the Messiah Yeshua.