Prayer - what is it really? It is simply a conversation with God. Whether it is public or private it should not change. It is always a conversation with God. It is never a time to preach a sermon. It is never a time to get theatrical. It is never a time to fill space in a worship service. It is always a converstaion with God.
Tony Campolo told a story about a lady who came to him after a service and said, "You know that you made 7 gramatical mistakes in your prayer this morning." He responded, "That's alright. I wasn't talking to you anyway."
We think of prayer as something we have to do, rather than something we get to do. We get to be in a conversation with the God who created the universe. Wow! There are certain people through history I wish I could sit down and talk to. Some on my list include Martin Luther the great Reformation Leader, Abraham Lincoln in my opinion the greatest President we ever had and Yogi Bera the hall of fame catcher of the New York Yankees (I know everybody hates the Yankees, but you have to love Yogi). But none of them, compare to the creator of the universe.
My youngest son, believes when he is praying he is talking to God. He always prays for himself and his brothers to have "good dreams no bad dreams." I was praying with him one night and asked him to include me in that prayer, I had a couple bad dreams that week. He said to God, "let Scott Baker have good dreams, no bad dreams. Not the Scott Baker who is the race car driver." He wanted to make sure God, knew who he was praying for, because he really believes he is talking to God. He will say anything to God anytime, because God is very real to Him.
We need to have this same innocence when we pray. We should have the freedom to have a real conversation, with a real God who loves us more than we can imagine.
Who are some of the people in history you would like to have a conversation with?
3 comments:
I would love to sit down and talk with family members who are now gone. Maybe they aren't famous to everyone else, but it would be awesome to me.
I love hearing my oldest son pray. He gets repetitive sometimes, but I agree that it comes from his heart and I could learn something from him. Good post.
I think it would be cool to have a conversation with Sam Walton after he opened his first store.
Church was awesome yesterday. I really enjoyed the way service was organized. It's good to be reminded how vital prayer is and how we also need to listen to God when he speaks to us.
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