Thursday, May 12, 2011

A Single Thought Raised

A single thought raised is a perfect prayer, to God.

As I was driving by a local church the other day, their marquee read these words.

In our churches, in our youth groups, in our circle of friends, we are burdened with the thoughts of our prayers being too long, too short, too in-depth or not deep enough. How are we supposed to know the "correct" way to pray? Or is there even such a thing?

This message ran through my mind over and over again, and then I was reminded of this verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:17 -- Pray without ceasing.
Seem impossible? Not so.

I believe with all of my heart that God seeks to have a constant, ever-growing relationship with each one of us, and when we train our thoughts on Him, our thoughts become prayers before Him, and continual prayers at that. Prayer is about communicating with God. When we are ritualistic with Him, we lose the relationship component of our connection. Jesus outlined the concept of prayer for His disciples in Matthew (chapter 6), and through that, we learn that prayer is so much more than finding time in the day to connect with God just to repeat words for the sake of having done it.

Living a life of prayer is not about "penciling Him in" our day planners.

It is a living, breathing, constant interaction with Him; a connection from His heart to our own.


Blessings,

A.

1 comment:

  1. Love, love, love this! I couldn't agree more. I heard Shane Willard spaeak about the Lord's Prayer once and something He said stuck with me. He said that The correct literal translation of the original Hebrew text of "Our Father, who art in Heaven" is closer to "Our Father, in the air we breathe" How cool is that? I have many prayers that I haven't even uttered out of my mouth answered that were just thoughts. Awesome post! xo

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with love.