Today, I’m afraid, is more of a rambling than an insight. Today I’m thinking out loud to you. Today you get to know how my journal feels. It might make you feel sorry for it by the end.
I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately. Maybe that is because one of the covenants I made with God this year was to pray for people as I’m prompted to do so. Maybe it’s just because I have a lot to say to God. I’m not sure.
My parents raised me to pray. As long as I can remember, we had family devotions every night before bedtime. Devotions always ended with prayer. The on-your-knees kind of prayer. Kids, I’ve decided, make that into a game time. At least this kid did. I would put the top of my head on the floor and wait to get dizzy. I would peek (don’t tell) and get a view of the living room from the perspective of the carpet. I would plant my forehead on the floor and scoot my knees around from left to right and see how many times I could do that without Mom and Dad noticing that I wasn’t being still. I’m sure they’ll write back and tell me they knew about all my tricks. I didn’t quite understand why we had to get on our knees and pray…I just knew that we did it.
Then there was the prayer itself. When I was really little, there was a massive exodus of old men in our church. One by one they died – and my job was to try to remember to remove them from my prayer list after they had died. More than once, I prayed for a dead man and then said “OOPS!” right in the middle of my prayer. So finally I concocted the generic prayer. It went like this. Ahem: “DearJesusthankyouforthisdaythankyouforhelpingusineverythingwedid-andhelpustomorrowinallthatwedoinJesusnameamen.” Every night I would try to beat my speed record in delivering that prayer. Mom would say “I can’t understand you.” I would say, “It’s okay. I was talking to God.” If I were my kid, I’d have smacked me. Mom was much more gracious.
Then I grew up. I made the executive decision to stop kneeling to pray. It wasn’t out of disrespect to God or my parents. I just didn’t like kneeling. I got distracted on my knees. Even as an over-twenty-year-old, I would find myself peeking around the room, letting the blood rush to my head, and swiveling from one side to the other. Maybe I didn’t grow up.
I also started writing my prayers. It only seemed logical since I’m a writer. I even went back and pulled out excerpts of prayers sometimes to use in things I wrote for others. Hope God doesn’t mind if others eavesdrop on our conversations.
But lately I’ve been rethinking that whole kneeling thing. It started with something I read on a blog that made me wonder if God might just appreciate an extra show of reverence. It made me wonder if I would take things more seriously if I developed a specific posture of prayer.
So I’ve tried it a few times. Here’s what I’ve learned. To get out of bed and kneel to pray first thing in the morning leads to falling asleep. To pray on my knees at my bed while the cats are taking a nap leads to my hair getting batted around when they wake up and find me there and my hair up for grabs. To pray on my knees makes me aware that the ONE skinny place on my whole body is the kneecap. BOY, hardwood floors hurt. If I pray on my knees and I don’t pray out loud, I revert to the peeking and swiveling from days of yore.
About the time I started experimenting with this, God called me to pray very specifically for two people. They are in two very different places of life and in need of very different things. But yet my job, I am told, is to pray. Passionately.
Hard to pray passionately when you don’t exactly know what to pray for. So I prayed about that. How do I pray when I don’t know the need? God suggested that I pray Scripture over them. In fact, since God knows how I love lists, He suggested that I come up with 26 Scriptures – one for each letter of the alphabet – and pray that. I loved it. Spent a whole day with a scrap paper folded up in my pocket, ready to add a new verse as I thought of it. I couldn’t wait to start looking up the verses, reading them in context, and applying them to my subjects.
Learned something. What is good for others is good for me. I’m not even to D yet and God has already shown me a whole host of things I get to work on in my own life. I thought this was supposed to be about other people! Guess I get to multi-task.
But when I pray for these two – I alternate between my knees to show my pleading and petition and pacing to keep me focused on my Scripture verses. I focus well when I pace.
So that’s where I am in prayer-land. Haven’t really decided anything. Still experimenting. Still learning. But whether I’m on my knees, sitting, or pacing, the important thing is that I pray.
I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately. Maybe that is because one of the covenants I made with God this year was to pray for people as I’m prompted to do so. Maybe it’s just because I have a lot to say to God. I’m not sure.
My parents raised me to pray. As long as I can remember, we had family devotions every night before bedtime. Devotions always ended with prayer. The on-your-knees kind of prayer. Kids, I’ve decided, make that into a game time. At least this kid did. I would put the top of my head on the floor and wait to get dizzy. I would peek (don’t tell) and get a view of the living room from the perspective of the carpet. I would plant my forehead on the floor and scoot my knees around from left to right and see how many times I could do that without Mom and Dad noticing that I wasn’t being still. I’m sure they’ll write back and tell me they knew about all my tricks. I didn’t quite understand why we had to get on our knees and pray…I just knew that we did it.
Then there was the prayer itself. When I was really little, there was a massive exodus of old men in our church. One by one they died – and my job was to try to remember to remove them from my prayer list after they had died. More than once, I prayed for a dead man and then said “OOPS!” right in the middle of my prayer. So finally I concocted the generic prayer. It went like this. Ahem: “DearJesusthankyouforthisdaythankyouforhelpingusineverythingwedid-andhelpustomorrowinallthatwedoinJesusnameamen.” Every night I would try to beat my speed record in delivering that prayer. Mom would say “I can’t understand you.” I would say, “It’s okay. I was talking to God.” If I were my kid, I’d have smacked me. Mom was much more gracious.
Then I grew up. I made the executive decision to stop kneeling to pray. It wasn’t out of disrespect to God or my parents. I just didn’t like kneeling. I got distracted on my knees. Even as an over-twenty-year-old, I would find myself peeking around the room, letting the blood rush to my head, and swiveling from one side to the other. Maybe I didn’t grow up.
I also started writing my prayers. It only seemed logical since I’m a writer. I even went back and pulled out excerpts of prayers sometimes to use in things I wrote for others. Hope God doesn’t mind if others eavesdrop on our conversations.
But lately I’ve been rethinking that whole kneeling thing. It started with something I read on a blog that made me wonder if God might just appreciate an extra show of reverence. It made me wonder if I would take things more seriously if I developed a specific posture of prayer.
So I’ve tried it a few times. Here’s what I’ve learned. To get out of bed and kneel to pray first thing in the morning leads to falling asleep. To pray on my knees at my bed while the cats are taking a nap leads to my hair getting batted around when they wake up and find me there and my hair up for grabs. To pray on my knees makes me aware that the ONE skinny place on my whole body is the kneecap. BOY, hardwood floors hurt. If I pray on my knees and I don’t pray out loud, I revert to the peeking and swiveling from days of yore.
About the time I started experimenting with this, God called me to pray very specifically for two people. They are in two very different places of life and in need of very different things. But yet my job, I am told, is to pray. Passionately.
Hard to pray passionately when you don’t exactly know what to pray for. So I prayed about that. How do I pray when I don’t know the need? God suggested that I pray Scripture over them. In fact, since God knows how I love lists, He suggested that I come up with 26 Scriptures – one for each letter of the alphabet – and pray that. I loved it. Spent a whole day with a scrap paper folded up in my pocket, ready to add a new verse as I thought of it. I couldn’t wait to start looking up the verses, reading them in context, and applying them to my subjects.
Learned something. What is good for others is good for me. I’m not even to D yet and God has already shown me a whole host of things I get to work on in my own life. I thought this was supposed to be about other people! Guess I get to multi-task.
But when I pray for these two – I alternate between my knees to show my pleading and petition and pacing to keep me focused on my Scripture verses. I focus well when I pace.
So that’s where I am in prayer-land. Haven’t really decided anything. Still experimenting. Still learning. But whether I’m on my knees, sitting, or pacing, the important thing is that I pray.
5 comments:
To get out of bed and kneel to pray first thing in the morning leads to falling asleep.
Amen to that!
When my kids were little I used to get up early and kneel at the piano bench to pray. But I kept falling asleep. I finally figured out that I needed to take my shower first, and then I was awake enough to pray. You might consider it.
I have no suggestions for the cats-in-hair issue.
Well you might be on to something there...because if I took my shower first, I'd be down at least one cat, because she would be IN the shower. (Her morning ritual after I'm done is to get in for her own bath.)
I am much more awake after the shower, so that might work. (You understand that "much more awake" is still a relative term...for best results, avoid me until after ten a.m.)
Your post brought up a lot of thoughts for me... specifically on how our personal beliefs about prayer dictate how much we pray, how we pray, etc.
I will try to put some of my thoughts to words and respond in a few days...B
Brandon - I'm very interested to see what you think. Prayer really fascinates me because although there is so much written about it - there are some areas that are still so untouched. Whether that's because they're sacred or just yet undiscovered, I haven't figured out...
Do our prayers alter God's involvement or direction in the future? If so, does this lend itself to an idea that God has a somewhat limited knowledge of the future (still by His choice)? If not, is prayer more about aligning ourself with the heart of God ... rather than about what we pray about? How is our prayer-life impacted by our internalized view of our parents? Is prayer bigger than our concept (kneeling, eyes-closed) and better captured by a lifestyle? B
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