Prayer should be messy, loud, irrational and life-changing. I mean, seriously, the whole idea of prayer is that you’re pouring your heart out to God. And if you’re at all normal, that means you’ve occasionally got all kinds of junk swirling around in there just waiting to get out in a gush of molten crazy that would overwhelm anyone patient enough to listen to it. Fortunately, God isn’t just anyone. And His patience is… well, He invented patience, right? So His patience is pretty awesome. Is there a time to be formal and proper when approaching the throne of grace? (That’s kind of a ‘duh’ question.) Of course there is! But there’s also a time to just let it all hang out as well. Spill your crazy all over Him—angry, sad, happy, whatever, ALL OF IT. Just open up and talk to Him about what you think and how you feel and don’t sweat the grammar or the volume or whether it all makes sense or not. Just let it out! He’s God. He can take it. And the amazing thing is, when you’re done shouting and crying and screaming ‘til you’re hoarse, He’ll still be there. Listening and loving and patiently waiting until you’re ready to hear His voice.
MoSoBSU
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Dear “Messy”…If you are blessed enough to be able to pray so Fervently..like you describe in this blog, then I envy you so much. I struggle with my prayer life..in all aspects of it..depth,time,sincerity,and most importantly consistantly..and Heavenly Father has been so patient with me. You give me something to aspire to..Thank you for this message.
Don’t get the wrong impression here. I’m not trying to say that prayer has to be that way all the time, just that there’s nothing wrong with it being that way some of the time. My own prayer life isn’t always “messy,” but sometimes it definitely is. And consistency is always a challenge. I think we all have this idea that we’re supposed to be up at an hour before dawn praying through some list we have in our heads that will somehow include everything we actually want to pray about AND all the stuff we told everyone else we’d pray about. It’s a nice idea, and I really do wish I had that discipline in my own life, but I think most of us would agree its an ideal we’re far from achieving. That said, two things that have helped me a lot in my prayer life:
1. Think of prayer more as a running conversation with God than an event you put on your daily calendar. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
2. When you tell someone you’re going to pray about something, do it right there on the spot. Pray with them in that moment, or pray for them on your way to whatever is next. You can always pray more later, but you’ll never be guilty of not doing what you said you would. And sometimes it really is helpful for someone to just have you pray for them in the moment like that.
Jon Smith