Today at my Church, the Pastor talked about what is really means to be in “prayer”. Often we think of prayer as only communication with God as if we were talking through the phone. An even worse interpretation, in my opinion, is that sometime prayer is thought about as a routine or a religious duty to make sure that we can still call ourselves a Christian.
Today, the Pastor talked about how prayer is not just communication with God, but being in his presence.
Our God is yearning to have a relationship with his creation. Since we cannot see God, we have a relationship through his presence. One of the definitions of presence is “a person or thing that exists or is present in a place but is not seen.” (Dictionary.com). That is how we have a relationship with God. We often talk about in Christianity that one can pray at any time, place, or manner, all of which is true; however, we often do not talk time out of our day to pray in a private and secluded place like Jesus Christ himself told us to do in Matthew 6.
I think that the reason why Jesus wanted us to do this is so that we could be concentrated on just being in God’s presence without interruptions or distractions. In a way, it similar to how couples want to spend time alone together. They just want to be enjoy each other’s presence. As the Bride of Christ, I think we should be doing the same and have those intimate prayer sessions where it its not just about petitioning God about what we need but just sitting there in his presence. So prayer is not about the petitions or the communication, but about being in his presence and you being in God’s.
Challenge:
Next time you go to pray after you communicate all that you have to tell or ask God for the day, sit in his presence. Enjoy his presence just how you would enjoy the presence of a friend. Prayer is not all about talking. Its also about listening and enjoying God’s presence.
Omar's Thoughts 