The Privilege of Prayer

After the two week break from the blog it was a little hard for me to get back again. I think more because the chapter I was coming back to and starting with was on prayer. I know that prayer is important but I feel that it is one of those subjects that I hear about so much, that I begin to start tuning out anything on the subject. It is as if I think I am an expert on the subject or something, although I know that I am far from it. However, God never ceases to amaze me. As I read this chapter he brought out so much to me and still spoke to me even with my high minded attitude.

In the first paragraph of the chapter I read about how praying and communing with God is more than "meditating upon His works, His mercies, His blessings;" it is also having something to say about our actual life. I thought it was weird to read this because I feel like the opposite is true of my prayer life. My prayers are usually concerning my life and not so much about the blessings, mercies and works of God. So I realize that as in everything else there should be balance. I need to think about God and all that he has done and also share about my own life. It would be like talking to a friend, I open up about my life but I also recognize and share theirs.

Then sometimes I feel guilty about unloading on God. It is exactly the same guilt I feel when I finally open up to my friends. I believe that my problems are my own and that I should not burden anyone else with them and so when I do I feel guilty about it and think that I am bringing that person down and burdening them with my problems. And I do the same with God. I am reluctant to bring my problems to him sometimes, thinking that I come to him too much. But, in this chapter I learned that I could never burden God and I could never make him tired of my worries. He wants me to constantly seek and turn to him. He wants me to know that every hour of every day he hears me. I can talk to him anytime, anywhere, anyplace.

It is so humbling to know how much God loves me and wants to be a part of my life and how little I reflect the same desire. But the more and more I learn of him the more and more I desire him! Especially when I read something so powerful as this:

The relations between God and each soul are as distinct

and full as though there were not another soul upon the earth

to share His watchcare, not another soul for whom He

gave His beloved Son. -p. 100