How do you pray?  Often my prayers slip into comfortable routines, predictable patterns, yet prayer is all around us – like our breath.  So many different ways to talk with God are waiting to explore. The following is a part of a three-week series on prayer and its many forms.  Come explore with me ways to address God when words are inadequate and let’s get to know God better by spending time with Him.Reading Catherine Marshall when I was younger was the first time I read about the Prayer of Relinquishment.  The dictionary tells me that when I relinquish something, like a possession or a right, I give it up. I surrender it.Catherine Marshall wrote, “…God was trying to teach me something important about prayer. Gradually I saw that a demanding spirit, with self-will as its rudder, blocks prayer….God absolutely refuses to violate our free will; that therefore, unless self-will is voluntarily given up, even God cannot move to answer prayer.”Image of this prayer is the garden of Gethsemane … [Read more...]

How do you pray?  Often my prayers slip into comfortable routines, predictable patterns, yet prayer is all around us – like our breath.  So many different ways to talk with God are waiting to explore. The following is a part of a three-week series on prayer and its many forms.  Come explore with me ways to address God when words are inadequate and let’s get to know God better by spending time with Him.Praying for others is both an honor and responsibility many Christian take seriously. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about this type of prayer, “Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day.”Intercession on behalf of a fellow human being is a way of loving the other.“Prayers of intercession specifically ask God to intercede in the world. We ask in the midst of tragedies involving thousands of people or in times of struggle and disease in the life of an individual, family or community. We are asking for God's help. Sometimes we are … [Read more...]

Prayers of Adoration Let's explore different types of prayers beginning with prayers of adoration. How do you pray?  Often my prayers slip into comfortable routines, predictable patterns, yet prayer is all around us – like our breath.  So many different ways to talk with God are waiting to explore. The following is a part of a three-week series on prayer and its many forms.  Come explore with me ways to address God when words are inadequate and let’s get to know God better by spending time with Him. At first glance you may think thankfulness and adoration are the same, but there is a difference. Adoration is the outpouring of love, worship, honor, and praise to God. Richard Foster writes, ”In one sense, adoration is not a special form of prayer, for all true prayer is saturated with it. It is the air in which prayer breathes, the sea in which prayer swims…In adoration we enter the rarefied air of selfless devotion. We ask for nothing but to cherish him. We seek … [Read more...]

How do you pray?  Often my prayers slip into comfortable routines, predictable patterns, yet prayer is all around us – like our breath.  So many different ways to talk with God are waiting to explore. The following is a part of a three-week series on prayer and its many forms.  Come explore with me ways to address God when words are inadequate and let’s get to know God better by spending time with Him.The more I pray with thankfulness, the more I realize the power in gratitude. I have read that love and gratitude are the two most powerful emotions for humans.“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.” – Meister EckhartWe are taught from childhood to say thank you, but as I get older I have discovered I never can fully thank God enough for all the blessings from Him.Each night before sleep I pause and review the day: What am I most grateful for and what am I the least grateful for?To be honest when I first began this form of prayer, I expected … [Read more...]

How do you pray?  Often my prayers slip into comfortable routines, predictable patterns, yet prayer is all around us – like our breath.  So many different ways to talk with God are waiting to explore. The following is a part of a three-week series on prayer and its many forms.  Come explore with me ways to address God when words are inadequate and let’s get to know God better by spending time with Him.We make prayer too complicated and difficult at times. God wants us as we are – coming to Him in open honesty, with our defenses down and our ego set aside.  I like what C. S. Lewis wrote, “The prayer preceding all prayers is ‘May it be the real I who speak. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’”Simple prayer is coming to God just as we are, with all our faults, problems, and imperfections. We tell God how frustrated we are, angry or discouraged. Richard Foster says, “Sometimes this prayer is called the Prayer of Beginning Again.”We are not alone with praying this way. The Bible is … [Read more...]