Monday, August 16, 2010

Prayer

Since prayer is conversation with our God, we can have an on going dialog, or a formal time of meditation and prayer or a combination. Just so we keep in touch! That is the whole point, to stay close to Our Father.

I have found that using the order from the book, What Happens When Women Pray, by Evelyn Christensen, is very helpful. She suggests we follow the A.C.T.S. format. First start with the A, for Adoration. Worship the Lord and fall on your face before Him. Use scripture, or just pour out your heart to Him in love and praise. When you do this, you get things right - you realize He is the mighty One and you are not.

You look at His holiness and see your sinfulness. This humbling realization of our need and our sinfulness just happens when we contemplate His perfection and our imperfections. These thoughts will naturally lead our thoughts to to C - Confession.

Coming before the Holy One, we can be confident He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). When we realize the magnitude of His grace and love through the cross, and His precious gift of forgiveness that cost His Son everything, we become overwhelmingly thankful which leads us to T - Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving pours out of our hearts as we think about and understand how amazing it is that we have received so much from our Father. We thank God for all He has given to us, including the gift of faith and of His dear Presence. We are now convinced we can approach our loving God with our needs, worries and fears with confidence.

We have now come to S - Supplication, the time to come and ask for God's help. We know He wants what is for our good. We can come boldly to the throne, trusting God to deal with all we cannot handle and give us wisdom to find our way in this world.

Whether you choose to pray in an orderly fashion or randomly utter "popcorn" prayers all day long, you can be sure the Lord loves hearing from you. You will hear from Him as well. But, that is for another blog entry. You really can pray without ceasing, for every thought can be communication with the LORD! Doma

No comments:

Post a Comment