ver.: 18 March 2008
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There's also a PDF booklet of the pages on prayer.
(Please, use this link for personal prayer requests.)
Private, prayerful Bible reading is intimate and personal. It's like exploration - it takes daunt and derring-do to dare to do it right. Be fearless -- ask God to show you, through the text. The very act of telling God about it turns even your bitterest thoughts into a strange kind of prayer. God's seen much worse out of us. You won't be struck by lightning for having even thought of what you're thinking. The decision to entrust God with the matter turns the strongest doubt into an act of faith and the most stubborn question into a plea of faith.
Much of the Bible is actually made up of prayers. Many of the Psalms and sections of the histories and the Prophets are prayers. The New Testament letters contain short prayers, such as the one in Ephesians 3:14-21. The best-known prayer in Scripture is the one that Jesus taught.
The Bible can also be the hub of your own prayers. No method
is needed, but for some of us, a method may help us stay
focused, disciplined, and open-hearted. One of the oldest is
'Lectio Divina' (divine reading), and it's geared toward
helping us listen to the Spirit that speaks through Scripture.
One form of it goes like this : first, quiet your mind down. If you find that hard
to do, it often helps that you focus on taking deep breaths.
Once you're gotten some focus, begin softly speaking a chosen
Bible passage. Then, read it again real slow, this time
listening for a word or phrase that stirs you, speaking again
and again until one stands out. Then stay with that word or
phrase, and ask why the Spirit is stirring you with it. Take
what you're thinking, feeling, and remembering, and offer it
back to God in prayer. Then repeat the process. You'll be
finished when you get a sense of peace about it. Or, you may
finish with a sense of exhausted disturbance, in which you know
you've poured it out for now, but you're still being stirred in
a way that may only be resolved as the day goes on. (If so,
keep going back to that word or phrase throughout the day, and
see what it has to do with your life.) Most people who use some
version of the Lectio find that at some time during it, the
Spirit reveals something about living the faith.
a site with helps on daily devotions
involving the Lectio
Sacred Space, an Irish Jesuit site operating 10-minute online
prayer and
devotional sessions
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Prayer isn't always exciting. In fact, it usually isn't. It's usually ordinary. That's okay; ordinary is good. But sometimes, prayer is worse than that : something's missing.
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Sometimes, you're bored. The habit is there, but the relationship is at a standstill. (You married folks should ask your spouse about that....) That means it's time to stop yawning and see what's happening with you in prayer. It may be time to :
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(Please note that there's a lot of 'sometimes', 'maybe', and 'often' in this section. It's a spiritual matter, and those aren't well-suited to tight rules. You'll have to learn how to discern the Spirit's voice in your situation.)
Usually, such minor adjustments are enough to curb your drifting. But, let's say, you've made the adjustments, they work briefly, and then SLAM! It hits you. God's not there. Sometimes one must taste the absence in order to keep savoring the presence. And sometimes God steps aside so you can learn to persevere in prayer, to keep working at it on trust.
But then, as you keep plugging away at it, it becomes clear that something else is at work. It's not really that God has stepped away, after all. It's that there's a communication breakdown. God's apparent silence is due to a problem at your end. Something's rocking the relationship. When you reach this point (and sooner or later you will), it's time for you to find out what's up. What could it be?
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Some common short-circuits :
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Many people wonder how someone can have a 'relationship' with the invisible, transcendent God. But these ways of blocking out God are, for the most part, the same ways we block out other people, and they were discovered by the faithful thousands of years before there was such a thing as 'psychology'. These blockages, and many others, undermine the trust and truthfulness that's needed for building any relationship, including that with the Creator of All, the Lover of My Soul. Awaken to these possibilities, and keep praying for guidance on these matters, even if you find your faith to be weak. You'll be led further into a mature faith in Christ. Then prayer can once again be spending time alone with Someone who loves you. Even when you're stuck, prayer is still working if you keep at it. It's working because the Spirit is at work; prayer's working on you.
Another suggestion is to get one person to be your prayer
partner - not your pastor (though your pastor needs one, he/she
needs to choose his/her own). Seek out someone of the same sex
whom you can trust, who is spiritually mature, and who is
willing to commit the time and effort to it.
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C'mon. I dare you. Try these questions and dares.
(Please, use this link for personal prayer requests.)
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