It all starts with prayer

I decided to begin this blog out of an inspiration I received in prayer. When I prayed this morning I asked Jesus to give me something new to do that would be fun, challenging, and a means for me to get closer to him. As I prayed I discussed with the Lord, "Lord, I have a lot of talents but they do not seem very useful to you unless I am going to be lecturing mathematics or making programs. What should I do to get closer to you then?" Then I received inspiration that I should try to write about something. At first I reacted in a kind of playful and curious way saying, "Really? I am terrible at writing though. Surely you can use other people to write since I am not all that great at it." As I continued to pray about it I realized it was truly a good idea. A verse came to mind:

Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

So I agreed and decided I would start here on blogger since I am not really sure where else to start and I love Google so much. Only in a it's-everything-in-one-place-so-why-not kind of way though. Prayer is the same in a sense in that it is the go-to solution for more or less anything in my life. When I'm hungry -- I pray. When I'm tired -- I pray. When I'm bored -- I pray. It's really so useful that it even puts duct tape to shame.

Yeah, prayer is more useful than that.

But my prayer was not always like this. I started out praying 20 minutes a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. My prayer was very mechanical and sometimes kind of awkward. It was never as bad as "rub-a-dub-dub thanks for the grub, yay God," but even thinking about how I used to pray still makes me giggle in embarrassment. Only after listening to my head Pastor and really trying to learn to pray given the advice he gave from the Bible was I ever able to pray in a way that I could not help but do it all the time. I'll just give you some of my favorite pieces of wisdom over a few blogs since they really are so deep.

Pray without ceasing

Putting the verse in the Bible here would be too ridiculous since it is literally the title of this section. Anyway, if there is one way to make prayer noneffective, it's to stop before it's finished. When you are running a race, do you stop just before the finish line?

I just ran 26 miles, I'm happy stopping here.

Prayer is the exact same way. If you pray while getting distracted by your cell phone constantly receiving text messages or you keep thinking about whether or not someone just commented on your post on Facebook every five minutes that is like stopping the race. Naturally, if you pray this way you'll have a really hard time receiving answers, solving problems, and connecting with God. Generally, I like to pray using a prayer mat in a quiet room with at least an hour of time to spare. When I pray like this, I have nothing to think about in the first place so all I can think about is reaching the goal.

This is not to say that I'm still without failure in this regard. I sometimes fail to pray with a focused mind so my prayer, which might have had good intentions, degenerates into basically sleep-talking. Let's just say that it's kind of embarrassing to tell God, "man I just want a pizza" in a half-awake state of mind. Or, I sometimes end up just falling asleep while kneeling only to wake up 30 minutes later with sore knees saying to myself, "Wow, that must have been a really focused prayer. Wait, what was I praying about?" Perfection takes continued practice, so failing is ok.

Also, for big things, you have to pray many times. You might have heard the adage, "Rome was not built in a day" before. They had to first conquer the entirety of the Italian peninsula, then unify all the tribes under one government, avoid a near-defeat by Hannibal, and then conquer the rest of the Mediterranean area. That took 700 years or so. When you ask God for something big, completely ridding yourself of a prideful nature, then you have to pray for it again and again until God gives it to you. More often then not, you'll actually notice once you receive it that God was gradually preparing you to receive it. If you give up, then all the prayer that you had done until that point will be useless.

You might be like me and think that it's difficult to keep doing something for an indefinite amount of time. To me, it can feel like chasing the light at the end of the tunnel and it just keeps getting farther and more faint. So instead of doing it for an indefinite amount of time, you can give yourself a set time to pray for it. For example, let's say you're looking for an answer for a specific direction in your life. You should pray until you receive the answer, but you can't wait 10 years. Instead, pray for 7 days, 21 days, or 40 days about the specific topic every day. That way, you're not just running on a treadmill. And, you might find that you receive the answer on the last day of your set time. You just have to look out for it.

Which brings me to my last bit about praying ceaselessly. If you want to receive an answer, you have to be ready for it.

Otherwise, the answer will hit you, bounce off, and you'll be left just being sore.

Prayer can be done at all times during the day. You can do it in school, at church, on a bus, doing laundry, studying for a test, and even taking a shower. There is really nothing magical about kneeling -- it just helps you focus properly during deep prayer. Prayer is thinking about the Bible, thanking God for things in your life, admitting your shortcomings,  and many other things. As long as your are trying to converse with God, it's prayer. When you live your life always trying to connect to God like this, it is like being ready to receive a pass in soccer, so you will be much more capable of receiving the answer.

I will be the first to admit that none of these are easy to do. But, if you really want to connect with God, it will be well worth the effort. If it's too much, then try starting somewhere small. If half an hour is too much prayer, then start with 10 minutes. If that's too long, then just pray one minute and just keep doing it every day. God will help you along as much as you want to be helped, so do it with thanksgiving and hope :). As for the next blog about prayer, I will be talking about times to pray. Hope to hear from you then!