Focusing on prayer
Recently, if was a blessing to receive a long comment on my blog from my friend Kerri who is a missionary in Bolivia. Kerri shared some of her experiences with prayer in response to my post Prayers, large and small. I thought other people would benefit from it, and I doubt you're into scouring my archives for new comments, so here it is!
I feel like I´m learning a heap about prayer at the moment - and that I have so much more to learn! A couple of thoughts to share that I have been thinking about or finding helpful:
Super-slow Bible reading. Saturating myself in the text, imagining the scene/concept, becoming the people in the text. Meditate on each word. For example I was doing this with psalm 103, and really visualing and putting myself in the pit described where my sin puts me . . and then imagining God reaching into the pit, drawing me out and ´crowning me with love and compassion . .´ feeling the sense of ´youth like an eagle´ that is described. It´s almost impossible not to spontaneously praise God and from this I find my prayer flows so much better
Kerri's experiences in this regard remind me of what was said about George Whitfield in Forgotten Founding Father.
Whitefield poured over the word of God, reflecting, using commentaries, and praying over every line and word, “making every statement a request and melting the passage into his soul.” He did this every morning, savouring and storing God’s word.
Due to this, later in life Whitefield could preach forty of fifty times a week without having time to prepare. He “could quote long passages of Scripture for his dramatic recitations.”
I often find that reading scripture leads me to pray about what I am reading. However, I am often reading fast. I have a Bible reading plan that goes through 4 chapters every day. However, I do find that I often want to go over the passage again. This can be a good time to put into action Kerri's "slow down and visualise" recommendation, and it has helped when I have tried it.
Kerri also shared about fasting, something I often think and read about but never do!
Fasting is something I´ve thought about a bit but not really done but my thoughts are – it´s not the act of fasting that helps us, its partly that fasting is a sin-finder – irritability, resentment etc that arise that we put as due to hunger are already there but surface when they are not masked by us satisfying our physical longings. We can find and confess seedling or hidden sins like this. Maybe we can extend this – in general I am too easily satisfied by food or other pleasurable activities. Time taken purposefully sacrificing something I enjoy in order to set this time aside for God teaches me to have my longings fulfilled by God and Him alone. NB even married couple are instructed ´not to deprive each other (of sex) except by mutual agreement in order that they can devote themselves to prayer´. Are we so easily satisfied by worldly pleasure that we don´t long for God like we should?
¨You, O Lord, are the thing that I long for
And yet, I´m not sure that I can bear the emptiness that this longing will involve.
If I really long for you then there will be no room for the clutter of a lot of other longings.¨ - author unknown
