Prayer is a strange thought. Who wants to talk to someone who doesn't talk back. After all people who do that are usually diagnosed as insane. For most of my life i did the crazy person prayer. I talked to God but never allowed him to speak back. How could he, I filled all the quiet time of my life with my own desires or thoughts. What kind of relationship is that? It was a selfish one. God always seemed silent too me. I have to ask myself how long i would stick around if some one was always talking to me but never listened. I might be silent to.
Anthony Bloom says that "... the beginning of prayer is when God is silent." What a gracious thing it is that He is silent, because we are probably not ready to hear what He has to say. How do we become ready to hear? I believe it comes from a proper perspective of ourselves in relation to Him. We are not God. We must come before the throne wanting nothing but Him. To enter his presence should be enough. With this mindset we are ready to receive. We should listen and talk less. How does this happen? Easily enough if your silent it might surprise you how quick He is to speak. He desires to. I think a better way to approach prayer is to be quiet myself and wait. This is awkward. Silence is hard. It has to be practiced.
I have this philosophy that the longer you can be quiet with a friend in utter comfort, the more real and vibrant your relationship is. I wonder if this is applicable in our relationship with our Creator. I hope so! May God begin to speak to us in our silence. So that we may have our desires transformed by his Holy Spirit. We then shall begin to pray.
1 comment:
Recently, I heard a man say that silence is the language of God. I wondered at that statement, because it runs counter to most of what I was taught as a child. But I think what you said about sitting in His presence is true, and perhaps that is what the man meant. There really does seem to be a knowing that happens in such silence that's beyond the terms of human relationship. Yet, as you've noted, after some time we experience it there, too, by God's grace.
I also heard recently that prayer isn't only an activity, but it is our true essence. Because we are no more fully alive, more whole than when in communion with God. It means that prayer is the purest form of our existence. I found and still find that to be a profound thought.
Great to see your thoughts here, man. Keep them coming!
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