I've been thinking alot about prayer lately. When you pray, do you pray like you are talking to a person? Because until recently I don't think I did. I found myself saying the phrase 'God I pray that...' alot during all of my prayers. I don't know I guess I thought maybe God forgot I was talking to Him or that I was even praying at all! Its amazing that when you really start to picture that you are talking to a person when you pray, your prayer life changes instantly. I was talking with the middle school boys a couple of weeks ago about this and we were talking about how annoying it would be to have someone say your name at the beginning of every sentence while they were talking to you? How long could you listen before you wanted to slap them!? I know God has way more patience than me, but it hit me that maybe God gets annoyed when I talk to Him! Maybe I'm completely off base here, but I don't talk like that when I talk to anyone else... except God. So I've really been working on actually talking to God conversationally in prayer, and it has revolutionized my prayer life.
So picturing someone helps, but what do you picture? Revelation 4 gives a pretty amazing picture of God sitting on the throne. He is a gigantic jeweled man with all kinds of crazy looking creatures flying around and yelling worship to Him at the top of their lungs, with lightning and thunder all around. Now there is a picture for you. When I was teaching the Kindergarten chapel we were talking about creation, and how God made everything out of nothing, He just spoke things into existence. One of the kids raised their hands and said, "Is God a wizard?" It was all I could do to contain my laughter, but then I started to think about it and it is amazing how a kid can pull a concept like that together so easily and just accept it. I'm not saying that God and Gandalf have anything in common, but it helped this child understand that God is not like us at all. To Him God is magical, powerful, and mysterious, and in that sense he nailed it. And I have to admit that a couple of times when I've prayed over the past week, I've pictured myself talking to an old man with a cool staff and a white robe :)
Enjoy the Journey
