Power in Prayer

I chose prayer walking as my spiritual discipline for the week. It was something that I'd done before, but not taken as seriously as I should have. My original thought was that it would be a really good thing to do going into work, class, etc. And the first time I went to work after selecting prayer walking, I forgot to do it. The next time I remembered, and I plan to continue to do that. However, something unexpected happened that I was able to use prayer walking for this week, and through it God showed me the power of prayer that I had seen before and believed in, yet needed to see again.

A close friend needed prayer, simple as that. As I walked by the room that the friend was in, another friend and myself prayed. We sat in a room near where the friend was, and prayed. We prayed for God's power to come. We prayed specifically, intentionally and with belief that God could do what we were asking. It was amazing. I realize that I'm being vague in this experience, but it almost can't be described in words. It was something that I'd prayed about before. But there was power in this form of prayer that night. Prayers were answered and God's presence was felt. I had never prayed so confidently. There is power in coming before God fully knowing that He can do what you are asking, while at the same time knowing that though He has the power to do what we are asking, He may have something better planned. No, things did not come out perfectly after this experience. But God was evidently working in the situation.

I wasn't expecting this experience in the least bit, but am so blessed that it happened. It has encouraged me to pray more sincerely and whenever I feel a slight tug to prayer. Sometimes it is easy to ignore that tug, but not anymore. If I had ignored that tug this past week I would have missed out on gaining a closeness to the Lord that I needed.

Intentionally & With Confidence

I found Martin Luther's devotional, Praying in Faith, easily applicable and very practical. His reflections on prayer were helpful. His description of petition and thanksgiving left me thinking of intentional prayer. Petitioning is telling God what is on our hearts. How many times have I entered prayer, and not prayed specifically? Yes, God knows exactly what is going on in our lives. But if we pray to him halfheartedly about our desires and struggles he knows that too.

Luther says concerning unceasing prayer, "There is no Christian who does not have time to pray without ceasing." I paused as I read this the first time, not doubting its validity, but reflecting on myself in this area. God gave us the ability to multitask, and I definitely believe this is one way we should always be multitasking.

Luther also talks about Jesus' teaching on prayer. Praying without faith and confidence gets us nowhere. We're praying with empty words when we do that. It's like when we ask someone to do us a favor, and then we go ahead and do it ourselves because we believe that they won't do it even when they said they would. Praying without confidence and faith that God will answer according to his will is in a way like that. We can't doubt that our prayer will be answered. If we do, then why are we praying and who do we think God really is?

Our great need for God should lead us into a life-long prayer with our Creator. The ability to communicate with God is an amazing gift and we all would do well to take advantage of it more often.

Fighting for Joy

Gratitude is the spiritual discipline that I chose to focus on this week. It's not something that I think about a lot to be honest. I take a lot for granted and can be pessimistic at times. One thing that continued to come up throughout the week was the cross. Even though there are some difficult things going on in my life right now, there is never a reason to feel so defeated. There is never a reason to act like Christ's sacrifice didn't accomplish anything.
Praying to God about my current hardships made me feel vulnerable. Why, I don't know, because I know that He can hear my every thought and knows how I feel anyways. I recognized that I struggle with praying completely honestly at times, because I leave out things. I have found it very helpful to write down my prayers if I am able. When praying to God to help me see the good in some difficult situations, they are often long prayers. It really helped me to keep my focus, and I look forward to going back and reading them later in life to see how I have grown and what God blessed me with through those situations.
Through it all, I have come to the conclusion that there is never a time when I have nothing to be thankful to God for. As I said before, the cross was on my mind frequently. When I took myself out of my situation and reflected on God and His goodness I found joy. I found comfort and peace. My mind was able to stop focusing on the difficult areas of my life and simply be in awe of God and all that He has done.

United to the Will of God

Trying to discern the will of God in our lives is usually difficult. When we are struggling in our walk with God, it seems especially difficult.

"It is by being united to the will of God that we enjoy and possess him, and it is a delusion to seek the divine possession by any other means. Being united to God is the only way, not in any specific manner or style, but in a thousand different ways, and the one he chooses for us is the best."

This quote from Jean-Pierre de Caussade's devotional struck me. As I continued through the rest of the reading, my thoughts dwelt on this particular excerpt. Surrendering to God's will should be enjoyable. It is not surrendering in the sense of unwillingly giving ourselves to an opponent. It is surrendering our selfishness and sinfulness for something much, much better. And this surrendering can happen in a number of ways. Everyone has a different story of how God brought them to Him. And though the stories are different, we are all united to God and His will. Let us recognize that!

s.l..o...w....i.....n......g

I live a pretty busy life, as I'm sure you also do. A full time student, working 25 hours a week, leading youth group and trying to have a social life doesn't exactly leave much down time.

Calhoun describes the spiritual discipline of slowing as, "one way to overcome inner hurriedness and addiction to busyness. Through slowing, the sacrament of the present moment is tasted to the full." In my go go go lifestyle, I don't often pause. I feel as though I hardly have the time to think about what I'm doing!

As I began to try to implement slowing into my lifestyle, I found myself thinking that it wasn't going to be a good thing. Slowing meant stopping whatever "productive" thing I was doing. I felt lazy. I had to talk myself back into trying again. And I'm glad that I did, because after I got over my initial feelings about it, I enjoyed it. My anxiousness was halted through slowing. God blessed me by showing me that I can slow down. Slowing allowed me to process what I was doing. It allowed me to appreciate the things that God has planned for my life right now.

"Be still, and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10

Shaping Our Souls

Making progress in living holy lives is a constant struggle in the Christian life. Though it is the thing that we want, what God wants, it is one of the most difficult things that we strive for. In Teresa of Avila's devotional she says,
"Whereas before the soul was somewhat deaf and blind an had no will to resist, now it has begun to hear and see and resist as one who is about to gain victory."
This part really clicked with me. When we first become Christians we feel invincible (at least I certainly did!). But the more we grow, the more we see our sin. We see the ways that Satan traps us. We see the depth of our sinfulness and the depth of God's glory, and don't feel so invincible anymore. We see the real struggle that our soul is battling.
She later talks about habits and Satan. Satan thrives on our bad habits, and tries even harder to prevent us from having good habits. Satan will try to lure is in to acts of sin. And if he can make it a habit, even better. In order for our soul to be developing Godly habits within us, we have to be aware of this. Know that Satan is coming at us from different angles. If one lure works, he'll try it again. If one lure doesn't work, he'll try another way. Making progress in a way seems to put a larger target on Christians--a target that we should gladly bear.
She also says, "We are free in the same measure that we are able to suffer." The choice is ours. We are free in Christ, not bound by our sins.
A few suggestions that she has are to be in prayer about the battle within our souls and have a mentor or an accountability partner that you trust and feel comfortable discussing this with. We won't grow unless we are making an effort in this! It won't always be easy, yes we will fall. But following the example of Christ who bore the cross and suffered for us, we will get back up again and continue pursuing holiness. Giving up isn't an option, we've already begun.

Running the Race

We're running the race... but to where? God calls us to perfection and holiness. Gregory of Nyssa discusses this race Christians are running in his devotional. I found it really interesting when he talked about how to measure this race. Trying to obtain perfection, all the while knowing that we can't possibly reach it might not sound like a race one would want to enter into. But then there is grace. God commands us to be perfect as He is. God sees the progress that we are making along the way. Sometimes we'll struggle. At other times we'll gain by leaps and bounds.

What is our purpose in running the race? If our motivation in living a virtuous way of life is because we fear punishment, want rewards, etc, then we aren't making any progress. Our motivation should be to grow closer to God. He is our friend and father. He may have given us a command to be perfect, and it isn't going to be easy all the time. But God is giving us an invitation to be closer to Him, if we would only pay attention! Our goal in this race isn't to run the fastest and beat everyone else. We are running the race together as children of God. We all want to reach the goal--not only ourselves, but our brothers and sisters as well. Looking at the race as a competition leads us to miss the point.

"...we consider becoming God's friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire. This, as I have said, is the perfection of life." --Gregory of Nyssa

Freedom Through Solitude

The theme behind all the spiritual disciplines this week was relinquishing the false self... Quite a heavy topic if you ask me! I went back and forth for a few days, trying to decide which spiritual discipline that I would focus on. I kept coming back to solitude, which is what I eventually chose.

At first, practicing solitude was very difficult for me. It didn't feel comfortable. I always feel the need to be doing something or talking to someone. When I found myself bored, I was inclined to take my phone out and begin texting or make a call. I'd do chores even, just to keep myself busy. As the week went on it became easier and even enjoyable (gasp!) to cut these things out of my free time and spend it with God. I began by doing small things, such as getting ready for the day in silence instead of playing music. The hardest part was getting started though. I was breaking routines that I'm used to in my day to day life.

Spending time alone with God revealed things about myself that I did not see before. Part of relinquishing the false self for me is taking out all of the fillers that are in my life. I began to ask myself, why do I spend my time this way? And instead of cutting all those fillers out at once, I found it more helful to try and figure out why I was using my free time to constantly stay busy with things other than God. Unless I can get to the root of things, I won't be able to relinquish the false self.

Something that Calhoun said when describing solitude is that it is "freedom from the need to be occupied and stimulated." I contemplated that phrase frequently throughout the week. I never considered it freedom to have absolutely nothing to keep me busy. But the freedom that comes with it allows me to make prayer more like conversation with God throughout the day. It helps me feel comfortable to not be so busy. I'm seeing how I need to make solitude a priority. Through practicing solitude this week, I have barely begun to relinquish the false self. But I have started to see more of the false self. And seeing is the first step in change.