Prayer: Day 1

How do you learn to pray?  Most of us would say they learn to pray from their parents, sunday school teacher, or by observing other people praying.  Richard Foster in his life found that his prayer life was lacking and ineffective.  So he decided to read the bible and focus on the prayers of Jesus.  What he found out is some things he learned about prayer were false (unanswered prayer, etc.).  One thing I have learned from readings on prayer is that it is experimental.  If you are not seeing or feeling results, try something different.  So the first five days I am going to focus on entering into the presence of God before I speak a prayer.

I get distracted very easily.  In each room where I am living at, there are different things that can distract me (book, t.v., phone, etc.)  So I decided that I will go to the bathroom and draw a bath to relax in while I prepare myself to enter into God's presence (and a little green apple bubble bath can help as long as I am not making facial hair out of it.)  Sitting in the tub, I close my eyes and I try to imagine myself walking through the hallway towards the throne room.  The holy spirit is standing outside of the room.  When I get to the holy spirit, I pray that it will cleans me from any impurities In my life.  If something is on the front of my mind, I will confess that impurity.  I also asked that the spirit will help steady my mind and my heart so I will not be distracted.  Once I felt clean and focused, I open up the doors and walk towards the throne of the Creator.  I talk to him and brought some request and questions to him.  After I have done that, I sit and wait for a response.  Once I feel that I am ready, I thank God for listening to me and walk out of the room.

The challenging thing about this approach, was how often my mind would wonder and thing of things I need to do (dishes, write this blog, etc.).  When those distractions would come, I would ask the spirit to take these thoughts away from me.  Overall, I felt this was a good experience, and hope that it will get better.