Prayer

One of the big reasons I was into taking this time out to spend at the "House of Prayer" was to hopefully get a better idea of exactly what prayer is and how to do it.

Lots of people DO different stuff when they pray here.  Lots of variety and very distracting for someone like me who enjoys watching people.

But some of the things we've been learning and that I've been reading about prayer have jumped out at me.

This one is by C.H. Spurgeon:

      " Prayer itself is an art only the Holy Spirit can teach us.    
        Pray for prayer.      
        Pray until you can really pray. "

I loved that it isn't necessarily something taught by reading the right book or listening to the people who pray the way that i'll connect to... etc.

It's intrisically taught to us by the Holy Spirit.  I guess thinking of the parenting analogy...

How do we learn how to speak if we don't speak with someone who speaks that language?

My girls speak English to me and have come along way in the last 3 years (for the twins)  Initially it was just "yesh" and "whoa" and now most people in the western hemisphere will be able to understand them.  But they learned thru speaking it not just thru hearing it.

Makes me think prayer is like this.  We have to practice it.  And it doesn't just look like one thing.

Also the prayer room has alot of "prayer time" which you'd be used to.  Praying for other countries, cities and specific people groups.

However, as I'm coming to learn here, or as I'm coming to a deeper understanding of is that first and primarily prayer is about me and God.  About MY inside.  Not about your "outside"

So prayer for me is alot of silence lately.  Just speaking to God about my day.  About my concerns and frustrations.  About who he is and the places I find difficult to accept about him.

One of our teachers said "God will never forget a single thing you ask, even though you forget your own prayers" It was wild because he was joking that everyday, we are living thru answers to prayer and we are oblivious to it.

Makes me think of my now curly hair.  It only became curly after my first pregnancy, when I was 28.  When I was 10 and younger, I used to ferverntly pray for curly hair.  I thought it was so luxurious and beautiful.  And my poker straight hair with its cowlicks just didn't do.

I stopped praying those prayers after my mom introduced me to the "home permanent"
AKA the perm.  But now however many years later, my hair mysteriously turns curly.  And a beautiful curly I might add.  Is that an answer to a little girls prayer?  Maybe, maybe not.

However you look at it, only me and God know of this prayer so only us find this a delightful happenstance.

Rhonda