But did you pray?
I have attended plenty of sermons, and teachings on prayer
and trust me the entire praying message can get pretty deep. It should be deep.
Prayer is our communication with the divine. Prayer has changed my life in so
many ways that I could not even rescue myself from. This is not going to be a
boring long drawn out blog about praying. This is my girlfriends perspective as
if we were sitting face to face chatting it up!
Prayer IS the
solution.
Don’t worry
about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and
thank him for all he has done. (Philippians 4:6 NLT)
Trust me on this one. Very briefly, I will describe what I
though prayer should be, versus what God has revealed in my heart. I think this
will be life changing for some people. The reason I feel this is important is
because the message from this blog came to me early in the morning after a
night of discussing many issues, with a dear friend of mines. I asked her
“but…did you pray about it?” Then this morning after my prayer time and
studying my Bible and devotionals, I read something about prayer. So I knew
this needed my girlfriend's perspective.
One thing I want us also to remember is; that when we do
pray, God is going to handle the situation in his timing and his perfect way.
Do not be discourage if answers to prayers go delayed, or even unanswered. If
you prayers line up with Gods will, it shall be. Just like any parent, God is
our father and sees the bigger picture, and he sees the future, so no you may
not win the lottery for 500 million dollars because it is not good for you!!
And maybe gambling and taking those risk are not the best option for your life
either. I am just saying!
How I thought I was
supposed to pray.
Growing up I attended prayer meetings, and they were
powerful. Throughout the years, I felt like I had to pray for a certain amount
of time, or I had to make sure I was crying, snotty, and speaking in tongues
or my prayers were not valid. I thought that if I did not "tarry" for
the Lord for hours then my prayers were not adequate. Basically, I felt a
prayer had to be no less that an hour long. Now no one ever said that was so. I
just thought that, because of the prayer meetings I attended as a child. Well,
when I began to be on my own as an adult and wanted to search for God to help
me. I could not get an hour prayer out. I just did not know what to say for an
entire hour. I did not feel like I was in the spirit enough to speak in
tongues. Realistically, I could not devote hours to prayer because I had small
children that were demanding my time. So I stopped praying. I felt like I did
not measure up anyway so what was the point?
Pray
without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians
5:17
KJV)
Believing that way was the biggest trick from Satan, I drew
me further away from God and I just totally shut him out. It was not because I
did not want to pray, I believed a lie. Well, I am here to tell you….NEVER STOP
PRAYING!!
God told me to Pray
One day a few years back, God began to minister to my heart
from various sources, and I began to receive him more. He placed back in my
heart the desire for prayer. He wanted me to study prayer and communicate with
him regardless of how I "thought" because see the way "I"
think is not in line with his perfect thoughts. He made it very clear that I
could come to him and talk about anything. Instead of picking up the phone to
whine and get advice. I could pray. I could speak to him just like I did my
friends. The beautiful part about it was God could resolve the problems. I mean let us just
think about it for a minute; we sit on the phone for hours with our friends or
family and cry our eyes out looking for advice on how to overcome. We barely
listens to the advice, or we might even resent the advice. Nothing changes. We
cannot do it, and other people cannot bring us the peace that God can. I
started to talk to God about those problems so profound that I could not share
with people. Even the simple problems that I could talk to people about I still
go to God first in prayer. I talk to God
all day, and he speaks back to me with answers. God has become my friend. That
is how we can begin building our prayer life. Talk to God like he is your
friend…respectfully and humble, of course.
How can I begin to
build my prayer life?
Simple. Talk to God. I do not care who says you must pray
for a certain amount of hours, or that your small prayers are not enough. You
must do what you can, God sees your heart, and he sees the desire. People will
always have their perspective, and it is
good to take advice but just like with most advice you can be inspired and
still do what is truly best for you. True Story: In the beginning I talked to
God about 15 minutes at a time all day! Every little step counts.
There are prayer instructions in the Bible that gives us
guidelines on how to pray and what we should do. Refer to Matthew 6:9-13
Jesus gave us clear instruction on how to go along with a
basic prayer of praise and acknowledgment. Never stop praying. Giving thanks
and gratitude. Also, when you begin to pray, believe that what you pray for can
be resolved. Prayer is pointless without faith. So as much as you think about
it, pray about it.
(Let me be clear, I am not disregarding long prayer sessions
when you are in need and the Holy Spirit takes over. I have those often, and I
have spent hours in prayer when I needed to because my holy spirit just must
have known what I needed. I have cried and pulled myself up off the floor. I
remember one occasion I had to pull myself up out of the tub because what was
going on in my life was that heavy. So yes, there will be times when we pray
that it will get intense. Prayer is intense. This blog is speaking for those
who are lost like I was with how to build an effective prayer life and making
it work for you, always with Gods direction).
Why pray?
We pray for so many reasons. We pray for other people and
their journey. We pray to communicate with God and show him how we adore him.
We pray when we are sad. We should pray
when we are happy too.
God wants to hear from us. When I have been in tough
situations and no matter how hard I searched for an answer, some inspiration,
some guidance, some healing, or some relief I never fully got it. Through
prayer and having faith I have been renewed. You can be renewed too. Give God a
chance, and talk to him.
“We have to pray with
our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.”
― Oswald Chambers
Need to talk? Vent? Or have any questions?
Please contact me at:
girlfriendsinspire@gmail.com
All email correspondence remain strictly
confidential
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