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Tag: Prayer

Checking In With Our Feelings In Prayer

20 August 2021 blogpastor Leave a comment

Checking in with our feelings at the beginning is another tool or aid to prayer. To be aware of our emotions is a good prelude to authentic prayer. We are praying as a whole person. We do not come to God only with our minds and reason. We come to him with body, mind, and emotions. Authentic prayer has to include how we feel.

The psalms give us ample examples of David’s authentic cries and range of emotional expressions. He is called a man after God’s heart and while in essence it meant he is one who seeks to do God’s will, authenticity about how he felt at different points in his life situations, and the ability to express that in prayer is certainly part of the spirituality in David that God loves.

What father among us would be satisfied with perfunctory, utilitarian, pragmatic prayers where children only ask for what they want and need. What father wouldn’t be delighted to hear his child share the emotions and deep feelings of his or her heart in the midst of happy or difficult life situations. It adds a deeper dimension to their relationship for sure. This is what God wants from us too. But too often we bury or repress or bypass our emotions and go straight into “business” or “the task at hand” – a transactional attitude towards God where an exchange takes place as though God is a Supernatural Vending Machine, not a father who loves and wants a closeness with us.

So a great aid to prayer is to sit still and reflect on what is the dominant feeling or emotion of the day or days or week. Is it confusion, pain, frustration, depression, sadness, joy, or excitement? Is it a blah blah boredom or a great sense of self-condemnation? A prolonged and deepening state of loneliness and isolation? No analysis is needed. No judgment of right or wrong is desirable. All that is needed is a gentle awareness of where we are emotionally, to feel it again and to express that to God. “Lord, I am feeling…….” If you have trouble identifying what you are feeling ask the Lord for help and look up Google for a chart of emotions that describe a wide range to help you label what you feel.

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise?” (James 5:13 ESV) We bring our suffering or cheerfulness or whatever emotions to the Lord and express it appropriately to Him. God loves such prayer and draws near to us who draw near to him as we are, sharing our deepest secrets and hidden emotions. Such prayer will find peace, wisdom, strength and new perspectives delivered to them.

Jesus at the garden of Gethsemane was keenly aware of how he felt and he expressed that to God and found the help he needed. Matthew records in 26:38, “Then he (Jesus) said to them (Peter, James and John), My soul is very sorrowful, even to death…” Then he went on to express that anguish to Abba Father. God delivered to him peace and supernatural strength and divine perspective.

Try this this weekend, and see how it helps you add depth to your relationship with the Lord.

Dealing With Inner Noise During Prayer

4 August 2021 blogpastor Leave a comment

“It felt like monkeys jumping from branches to branches. More than one monkey.” The person was talking about the experience of preparing to pray and meditate. This is common and something we need to expect and learn to stay calm about, take action and carry on.

THE CHALLENGE OF INNER NOISE

Our mind is like a river carrying floating dry leaves across our mind in an endless stream. Many of these thoughts are insignificant and lightweight and could be ignored with a mere switch off in our soul. They merely come and disappear as quickly as the stream of water passing by.

The difficulty is when these thoughts, ideas, problems, burdens, emotions, experiences swirl around. It could be your mind trying to solve a problem, flirting with a new idea, remembering something that needed to be done, someone to call, feeling a mood or dominant emotion that suddenly surfaces onto consciousness, or worries and concerns that weigh on you, or a difficult decision to make. They keep pestering. They refuse to leave. Like a float you push underwater, they pop up again and again. If we do not do something with them we might end up totally focused on these matters, feeling spent at the end of all the thinking, and feeling drawn away from God’s life-giving presence.

TWO METHODS TO HANDLE “MONKEYS”

There are two methods for handling this. One is to make a record of them in a journal, notebook or phone. Record them with the intention of getting back to them later after you have given yourself to meditation and prayer. Giving them a place of existence, a number in the queue, will placate them, or rather re-assure yourself that these matters will be taken up and will not be forgotten. It gives you peace of mind since they have been set apart safely to be looked at later. This is a prayer aid that will help you focus on meditation of God’s word and prayer first. When you later come back after prayer, to the list to discuss them with the Lord, you may find that the meditation you had was timely in giving you a timely word or godly perspective, and the prayer time had strengthened your faith to view the list differently.

A second way is to pray through and discuss with the Lord all the items you have recorded before going into your meditation of the word and prayer. This is particularly good when the first method was futile as you kept thinking about the problem or your swirling emotions and desire refused to be calmed. Let these problems, burdens, emotions and desires be the subject of your conversation and discussion with the Lord. As you talk to the Lord as a friend speaks to a friend, you will find that it is not mere monologue but an exchange is going on. Thoughts and inspiration and ideas and perspectives may dawn on you in prayer. New desires and self-control may overtake your anxious, angry and greedy soul. You may find that this alone had taken all the time you had allotted and there is no time for meditation on his word. It does not matter. You have prayed. You have had communion with the Lord.

I am sure there are other useful methods readers have tried. I am sure if you take some time to share what worked for you, it would be of help to other pray-ers too. The comment button is below the title of this blogpost.

Breathe slow, breathe deep

30 July 2021 blogpastor Leave a comment

One of the things I learned from being in prayer retreats is the importance of a rested body to prayer. I would be encouraged by the spiritual director to settle in and relax, take walks and sleep as much as I needed. He knew from experience that many Singaporeans who came for retreats were usually tense, wound up, and drained. To start praying with such a state of mind and body would be counter-productive. A day or two would be needed to unwind, sleep well, and eat well and be in a better state to be alert and to pray.

Like it or not we are not mere spirit beings. We have a body as well, and it affects our emotions, mental concentration and spiritual alertness. I learned that I prayed better when I was better rested. I attended better to the Scriptures, meditation, and prayer.

When this learning is applied to my regular prayer and meditation it meant that I usually gave some time for slowing down, quieting myself, and to let myself dial down physically by taking slow and deep breaths for several minutes, typically ten minutes, sometimes for double that. I would consciously slow down my breathing and would seek to be more conscious of God’s presence with me before I start my reading or meditation of scriptures or other spiritual exercise.

When I first started out on this practice I would set my timer to ten minutes of silence and deep breathing. I did this because my temptation would be to quickly get productive and efficient and finish my “quiet time” or “lectio divina”. The timer held me back from diving straight in before I was in a better place to be receptive to God.

Moses was 40 days in the mountain before God revealed Himself and gave him the ten commandments. Couldn’t God do it more quickly? Wouldn’t three days be sufficient? I do not have a definitive answer. Perhaps God was ready to give Moses the ten commandments but Moses was not ready to receive the revelation. Just a thought.

Try this out. It is an aid to prayer. Unwind. Relax. Breathe slowly and deeply for ten minutes or more if needed. Before you read, meditate, reflect or pray.