Pray it Up

There was something else I was thinking about posting about today, but it's super deep stuff that I have to take a lot of time to look into, so I'll do that at another time.

Again, sorry for the lack of posts, but last week I was at camp where there was no service at all, and little internet. It was good to get away, but you know how people get all twitchy without communication to the outside world. Anyways.

Today I want to talk about prayer. Prayer's a good thing.

Many posts ago I posted an entry called "Conversations with Ourselves." I want to build off that, forever after I originally posted it. I'm good like that. Anyways again.

So prayer. There's a lot in scripture that talks about prayer, but I want to just touch on different ways you can pray.

First off prayer is just communicating with God. Just sitting down and talking with him. Some day that there's a formula modeled off the Lord's Prayer, I've met people who always start off with that prayer, and there are some with incredibly formal with their prayers. If you've ever heard me pray, I'm incredibly informal with it. I always start my prayers off with "Hey God" or "Hey Dad." And why shouldn't I? God and I have been reconciled and have every right to talk to each other as friends, because we are. But that's how I'm comfortable praying, so the next thing to know about prayer is that you should be comfortable doing it.

Now some ways to pray. Back in the fall semester, a group I was in for a class put on a prayer thing, where we had different ways to pray as stations. I'm going to share those with you in attempts to get you to talk with God.

1) Prayer through silence: Psalm 46.10 "Be still, and know that I am God." Take some time to sit and recognize the power of God. He will be exalted among the nations. He will be exalted in the earth. He is that great and that powerful. So sit back and reflect on it. Find silence in your life and seek God in it. Take time and be still.

2) Prayer through conversation: Find out how you view God, search through scripture and see who God is, and talk to him like that. You can even take some creative liberty with seeing God. I have no problem if you see God as your Jedi Master.

3) Prayer through writing: Write out to God, write him a letter. Some people can write a lot better than they can talk. That's alright, write something to God.

4) Prayer through scripture reading: Communication goes two ways. Listening to God can take form in sitting in silence, or sitting and reading his Word. Find a passage of scripture and read it, see what God is saying to you. Psalms are really good for this, my particular favorite is Psalm 18 or 46.

So take some time tonight to talk to God. Try different ways throughout the week. But

TAKE TIME TO TALK TO GOD!