Are we able to “sleep” in times of trial?What do you think? Where are you at? Again, the discussion was great, but let's continue to dialogue on this here at the blog.
Have you ever asked someone a question only to walk away before hearing the answer? Have you ever prayed to God, hoping for an answer, but decided not to look and see what God might do? Are there answers to our prayers all around us that we have not noticed?
What is our view of prayer and our approach to prayer?
I'm gone on vacation this week. Don't talk about me while I'm gone. :-)
3 comments:
I find this story of Peter quite amazing. I have heard it told-to children, and I have told it myself, though without the worms-and I find new things in it everytime I hear it/study it/teach it.
1)I wonder about this sleep thing. That would be soo awesome to have faith like that! But sometimes I wonder if we "sleep" because we are comfortable, when we may actually be in danger? Like, maybe we are so comfortable in some sort of sin, that we sleep, when we should be awake, and watching, for something might over come us...I think of the story where the guy got a tent peg through his head...though he was bad, he should have been watching...
I think I sleep when I should be watching. It's hard...because like someone said, change is scary.
2)I think when I pray and don't look to see what God answers, I am afraid of what I might find. And I wonder how many others are like that. Maybe, if I asked the wrong thing...God might strike me dead, or something. Maybe I will find happiness...but maybe I won't. Just like change, the unknown is scary, and sometimes it feels that it is better to avoid it. To the third point of this question, there are probably answers all around us. Sometimes we are blind to them, sometimes we are afraid to look, and sometimes we are just so stubborn that we won't believe it. And that is too bad, because God can fulfill our wildest dreams, and even the wildest ones we haven't dreamed.
3)I find that a lot of people, myself included sometimes, that prayer is hard. And maybe sometimes it is. I find myself sometimes, just crying out to God,"God just help me" because I don't know how to say what I want to say, or what I even want.
I heard Louie Giglio (sp?) say once, about prayer, that God knows what we are going to say, so why don't we listen? It goes back to answering prayers, and paying attention, but I also think that God wants us to tell him everything, even though he knows it. How many times do we listen to a story we have heard a thousand times? Why do we do it? Because we love the person. (But of course, sometimes we just don't want to hear it. Good thing God doesn't do that.)
You know, I forget who said it last night, (it's Monday morning), but I never thought about being angry at God. It's taboo, and has been all my life, it was how I was raised...but if you can't be angry at God, you are gonna take it out on someone else. It always happens in my life. I am angry at God, but instead of taking it to him, I take it out on someone who has no clue what is going on. Now I see: it's important to take things to God, every thought and feeling. I think that God wants to hear it, so you can work it out. And Jesus got angry. Anger is not a sin, just what you do with it.
Wow, I can't tell right now, but I think that was pretty long...
Okay, let's talk about Trevor.
Seriously, great post Megan.
"And that is too bad, because God can fulfill our wildest dreams, and even the wildest ones we haven't dreamed."
Great quote.
As I have marinated in the thoughts of others, there is one word that continues to rise to the surface in my mind...'abide.'
As I think about prayer and its role, I can't help but to think about an ongoing conversation between folks that genuinely like spending time together. It seems like we get hung up on prayer's 'function' and how that function makes us better people, or how that function can cure stuff or promote healing. And if it we boil prayer down to it's function, then we will always focus on form and process in order to illicit certain results.
It's not that I'm anti-form or anything like that. The church has a rich history of forms of prayer (lectio divina for instance). It's just that I'm anti-form as it relates to our motives versus God's.
I think that prayer is relational at it's purest form. Constant communion with God means that sometimes you will pour your heart out, sometimes you'll rejoice in something or about something, or sometimes just hanging out.
Mother Teresa was once asked what she said to God when she prays, and she answered "I don't say anything, I listen." And when asked what God says, she answered "God doesn't say anything, He listens."
That's the essence of abiding, I think.
Answers to prayer become a living out of our relationship. Sometimes God answers in some expected or unexpected ways. Sometimes we're the answer God had in mind.
We start to take things in stride when we understand what it is to abide with our Abba...
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