Prayer is the means of engaging in two-way communication with God. You will want to start most of your time with God by being quiet and listening to His direction. At first, being quiet before the Lord may be difficult with the noise and distractions that are all around you. However, with time, this start can refresh your mind, body, and soul as you learn to recognize His voice. John 10:3 states, “The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” By consistently making it a habit of listening first, you will learn to recognize His voice and follow it. Just like in a human relationship, your relationship with God should allow time for God to talk and for you to listen. There should be a balance of listening and speaking.
Lamentations 2:19b says, “Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.” God wants you to share everything with Him. The good, the bad, and the ugly. He is your shelter and protector, and He wants to know everything you think about, even the ugly. “God does not expect His children to have it all together before coming to Him.” Instead, He wants you to share everything with Him, to learn to trust Him, and to create intimacy with Him by trusting Him with all your feelings, hurts, struggles, celebrations, and desires. The Bible calls David a man after God’s own heart. When you read through Psalms, which were mostly penned by David, you will see that he told God e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. When David was even very angry and hurt by God in his current circumstance, he brought it before God. Authentic communication in a relationship is the willingness to share even the ugly side of yourself and ask for forgiveness, repentance, and restoration.
Don’t make this key complicated. Prayer is communication with God and can be done anywhere and everywhere. There is not a specific prayer that you have to pray every time. Jesus leads his disciples in the New Testament with a simple framework for prayer, but we aren’t even going to unpack it here because I don’t want you bound to feeling like you have to follow a specific framework. How boring would human communication be if you said the same thing every time you interacted with that specific person? The same is true when communicating with God. It can even be a quick flare prayer of “God, please help me” in the moment of a frustrating situation. Whereas other times, it can be a set aside daily timer where you talk with God for 10 minutes or for hours on end. Prayer should be more focused on open, honest, and transparent access to God and less on always receiving answers at the moment. The key to prayer should be used alongside the key to quality time. It is your time to get to know God and for you to share more about yourself with him. He knows everything about you, but he longs just like a father longs for his child to share his day with him. He wants to hear and see your smile as you tell Him about a happy part of your day, and He wants to catch your tears during the moments of your day that are heart-wrenching. He wants to hear and see it all.
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