Short on prayer part 2

Happy New Year!

When we pray, we need to fully comprehend that God listens.

We don’t need to find the right words. God already knows what we want to say. We do, however, need to pray with sincerity. Sometimes - often in my case - prayers are just empty words. But when we pray with sincerity, we know that God listens and that God hears every little infinitesimal grain of insincerity. He still hears. He still listens. But what we say doesn’t mean anything.

When we pray with sincerity, things that we have hidden from ourselves will come to the surface. It gets brought into the light of God so that he can heal it.

When God answers and we keep on asking

A while back I asked God about a private matter. I received a pretty clear answer and yet I kept on asking. I honestly didn’t consciously forget about the answer. But since I wasn’t pleased with it, I was probably not that keen on remembering either. 

Now I’m going to do my best to remember God’s answer and live by it till God gives me a reason to do otherwise. Unless I forget the answer again.

Short on prayer

I’ve realised that I can treat my experience of prayer in vastly different ways. In prayer as in no other practice, it has become clear whether I’m doing something heartfelt or not. If I’m there, if I’m really speaking to someone and if there  is any true meaning behind my words. I have often caught myself approaching prayer as just something I expect myself to do. I’ve used some nice words about gratitude, forgiveness, guidance or whatever. But I haven’t really been there. I haven’t really thought about what I’ve been saying. Often, I have been somewhere else in my thoughts. And I haven’t intentionally directed my prayer towards God.

I know that this type of absent-mindedness can be found in many of my activities. But as I said, I’ve seen it most clearly in prayer. Felt the difference between it and really being engaged in what I’m doing.