Prayer

I've realized today, as I was reflecting (as I often do, on anything and everything), that my attitude and approach towards prayer has changed over the years. In the past, pray would not be such a regular thing. I prayed when I said grace, and I prayed corporately, often, with IV and with my accountability partner, etc. Those were regular but scheduled. It wasn't often that I would pray just cause. Prayer was often motivated by a need. It didn't necessarily have to be my own need but perhaps IV needs, the nations' needs, my friends' needs, family needs, etc.

But as I reflected just now, I realized that that has REALLY changed for me. Now, prayer is more like a conversation with God. I talk to Him every day, multiple times a day. And it's not scheduled at all. I do it anywhere, anytime. While I'm grocery shopping, while I'm working out, while I'm walking to class, while I'm driving, when I'm in the shower, when I'm washing dishes, (which may or may not be good because most of the time I have tears coming down my face when I pray :P)...and I'm not making this up. I'm actually thinking of all the times I've "caught" myself praying, talking to God.

And I talk to Him about EVERYTHING. From how I'm feeling about certain things, to thanking Him for how classes went that day, to lifting up my friends' needs, etc. It's like stream of consciousness. And I ask for Him to respond too. I want to hear Him talk back to me. And He does. If my heart is anxious, it calms when He is near.

And not only do I talk to Him. I record our conversations. Just like we archive all our email correspondences or keep letters and postcards in a box. I keep a "prayer journal" but really it's just a record of what I talked to God about that day. A record of the prayer requests that I've told Him (which may be repeated for days but I still record them because each day is a new day and each day I seem to pray for something new about that old prayer request), a record of my praises, etc. Like archiving God and I's email correspondences :).

And what I've learned just this week is that there are truly some feelings and things that are just between me and God. I've posted some of these publicly but have taken them down recently because God has revealed that to me. Some of these intimate feelings and matters should not be shared even with my closest friends. And it's not because I'm shutting down, pushing people away, keeping skeletons in my closet lol, etc. It's kind of hard to explain. "It's between you and God" is a phrase that Christians often throw around. And I often didn't know what that meant even though I used that phrase often as well...perhaps this is the beginning of a shred of light on what that means. "you and God". I'm still learning but God is teaching me about that phrase. And it makes me feel special that God would want some of me to be kept just between me and Him. I believe it's a sign of intimacy. And it makes me love Him even more for it.

If I get off this pattern of conversing with God even just a little (as I had done off and on for the past few weeks), everything goes haywire. And for awhile, I didn't know what was wrong...And then yesterday, God spoke to me about those things and then all of a sudden, it's as if I was in that scene in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End when up was down and down was up. My world righted itself and there was peace. It was truly amazing.

Prayer...I feel like I should use another word. Cause that doesn't adequately describe my conversations with God anymore. It's deeper than that. More intimate than that. Fuller than that. Perhaps it's greater than any language can express...