A Place to Pray

"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.” ~ Matthew 6:6

For several posts I’ve been sharing my thoughts on tapping into the spiritual realm and truly communicating with God. And while this requires honing our spiritual senses, the physical environment around us can either contribute to or diminish our prayer process. As we see above, Jesus recommended we go into a small, quiet room and pray.

In his book Mystically Wired, Pastor Ken Wilson asserts that many Christians fail in their prayer and devotional lives because they make it too hard on themselves. They make unrealistic demands and set themselves up for failure. God intended for us to enjoy prayer. It is meant to be a relaxing and refreshing time in His marvelous presence. I’ve mentioned some techniques that might help enrich your prayer time including listening to God, imagining meeting with God, and ruminating on specific words from scripture. But today let’s spend some time considering where we pray.

We should prepare for prayer the same way we might prepare for a date with our spouse, making it a special time to meet with the lover of our souls. Choose a place that is quiet and comforting. A place that will bring you joy. A place that is special to you. That way when you go to this place, your body will immediately respond with positive associations. As you have wonderful prayer times in this place, those associations will continue to grow. It doesn’t always have to be the same exact place. I have three places in my house where I like to pray. Find what works best for you.

Next, think about your posture. What helps you enter into prayer and focus on God? Kneeling, laying prostrate on the floor, sitting with your hands folded? For me it’s usually sitting cross-legged or with my knees tucked to my chest in an overstuffed chair or on a plush carpet. It could be lying in bed…or showering…or driving in your car. There’s never a “bad” place or way to talk to God and petition him. However, some environments and positions help us to better enter his presence and hear from him in return.

When you first begin to pray, consider taking some slow deep breaths to relax yourself and enjoy the moment. Imagine breathing in the presence of God and breathing out all the stress of your day.

Here are some other tools that might contribute to your prayer experience.

1)      Art work: Anything beautiful that lifts the soul, photos of nature, religious artwork, even a relaxing screensaver

2)      Water: a trickling fountain or sounds of the ocean or rain

3)       Fire: candles, a fireplace, a campfire, or a virtual fire

4)      Scent: incense or a relaxing aroma like lavender or vanilla

5)      Bible: a special Bible with personal significance in a translation you love

6)      Devotional Books: prayers, scripture collections, poems, writings in God’s voice

7)      Journal: for recording what God speaks to you and your own poems and prayers

8)      Music: classical music, instrumental music, especially worship music

I keep this website book marked because it streams beautiful “soaking” worship music all day long. http://www.soaking.net/

Give thought to what blesses you during your prayer time and keep those items handy in one place. It won’t be all of the prayer aids I mentioned. Certainly not all at the same time. I once experimented with lighting a scented candle, running a fountain, and playing worship music all at the same time. By the time I was done I had entered sensory overload and was completely distracted. But I have been blessed by all of these items individually during my prayer sessions.

This post would not be complete without mentioning the place I spend most of my personal prayer time—what Ken Wilson calls the “outdoor cathedral.” Like many others, I feel closest to God in nature with no ceiling over my head. I love to listen to the birdsong, the rustle of the breeze. To watch scampering squirrels, waddling ducks, and soaring hawks. Even little ants busy at work. There I can see, feel, hear, taste, and smell God all around me. I do much of my praying in conjunction with walking and biking. And can you guess my favorite prayer place of all? Along the beach, of course :)

This post should allow for some good discussion. How do you enjoy praying? Where do you pray? Do you use any aids in prayer? Might any of these suggestions enrich your prayer life? Do you have any suggestions for us today?

Shut Up and Listen!

You don't believe because you're not my sheep. My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.  ~ John 10:25-30

I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a church where prayer was mostly about talking at God…with words. And this process, for reasons I’ve shared during my last few faith posts, didn’t work out well for me. So I’ve been blogging about different tools to add to our prayer and devotional times to help us better tune into the spiritual world and truly communicate with God.

This week I want to talk about the simple process of listening to God with our inner ears. Considering the fact that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, you’d think we’d want to stop and hear what he has to say. I mean, I could spend hours talking to him about my problems. Maybe that would make me feel better. Probably it would just get me more worked up. Besides, he’s already intimately acquainted with me. So wouldn’t it be better to listen and hear what he wants me to know.

Yet don’t most people spend 90% of their prayer time spouting lists at God, or worse yet, trying to order him around and inform him how he should fix the world. I’m sorry, but this strikes me as a terrible plan.

So why don’t people spend more time being quiet and still and listening to God? Maybe because it can be a little scary. Maybe because we’re afraid we’ll fail. Maybe because it requires a loss of control. But listening to God is the most life-changing kind of prayer there is.

Some of the techniques I’ve shared recently like meditating on words and phrases from scripture or imagining God can be helpful in listening. Deep breathing, quoting short scriptures, soaking in quiet worship music, or time spent in nature can also be helpful.

Perhaps the most helpful tool is journaling. By writing down the thoughts, feelings, and impressions that bubble up from that well deep inside of us, we allow them to flow free. Choose not to analyze, but just to capture it all on paper. Then later you can compare what God has spoken to you with the word of God or share it with a spiritual advisor.

What will God’s voice sound like? Fair enough question.

God rarely speaks in an audible voice. You have to quiet your own thoughts to hear his still quiet voice deep in your heart. And it does tend to feel as if it come from somewhere in your chest. God’s words will often take you by surprise and sound like nothing you could have come up with on your own. There is a sense of “flow.” They will bring peace and comfort. They will sound of authority. Even if they convict, they will do so with love and compassion. They will strengthen you and give you hope. They should always align with scripture and will sometimes even take the form of scripture.

Our own thoughts usually come from somewhere in the vicinity of our head. They tend to be logical and predictable. Most of us are pretty familiar with our own thoughts. They often run in circles and get us nowhere.

Satan’s voice can be the trickiest, but you’ll quickly learn to tell the difference. This voice brings negative emotions: fear, anger, hopelessness, condemnation, bitterness etc… It might sound good on the surface, but you can tell it by the fruit it produces. It accuses and twists the truth. Satan loves to use words like “always” and “never” and work you into a frenzy, the opposite of the peace of God. His words twist in your gut and can feel like they come from that area. Rebuke the devil in the name of Jesus when these thoughts attempt to invade.

Don’t focus on Satan, though. Focus on God. He is the good shepherd and his children know his voice. Spend time with him. Learn to listen to him. Use the tools that best help you to relate to him and hear him speak.

So the next time you pray, remember, stop talking so much and listen already.

What helps you listen to God? How do you identify his voice? Have you ever tried keeping a prayer journal?