Prayer

O little one,

How prayer is like breath. In and out. O God You must do this... I cannot make it without Your help in this... I surrender to Your will in this... Before each moment of decision, each difficult encounter, the Lord is ready to be Your strong Help at your task. 

He takes your daily mundane to a new significance as you offer it to Him, He takes your difficulty and works miracles before your eyes, He takes your emptiness and brings forth glorious somethings from the nothingness. If you feel dry and weary, pray. If you feel aimless and worthless, pray. He is the Source of Life everlasting in life tangible. 

Prayer is aid to a soul fragmented and bleeding from self-inflicted sins. It is connection to regeneration of the realest kind. It won’t necessarily feel this way as you do it -- but in the highest reality it is doing all these things for you and as you look back it will be undeniable. 

I think the lack of feeling during the process is the test of faith: how much do I really believe these things? how much will I push through to gain Him and His blessings? 

Your daddy likes to say that the spiritual reality is the highest reality. If only our spiritual eyes were open all the time to the fiery chariots in the fields we should be constantly crying out and praising, like the saints in Revelation. 

Your Grandpa Dean preaches on the Lord’s Prayer and for as long as I can remember he has spoken of the power in those lines to produce a prayer-life. 

Daddy God -- affection, delight, kindness, patience with my weakness; 

who is in heaven -- glorious, beyond imagining, unlimited resources and goodness; 
hallowed be Your Name -- precious to me, the most beautiful and treasured thing in my emotions, will and life; being seen as greater and more awesome all the time; 

Your kingdom come -- reign in all I do, submit our surroundings to Your hand that we might have true joy and delight; come King of kings; 

Your will be done -- my will curses and kills my life; Yours is good beyond all we could ask or imagine; 

on earth as it is in heaven -- let our home be a little heaven and light to the world of Your love; 

Give us this day our daily bread -- I am a spiritual beggar, I have nothing that has not been given to me by my Generous God.

Forgive us our debts -- I owe You, infinitely, terribly. To see things rightly is to be on my face before You for Your pardon of my impossible debt.

as we forgive our debtors -- i have no claim to hold on others in light of Your gift of grace; make me quick to let love cover a multitude of sins; before the cross we are all the same. 

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one-- I am a sheep, prone to stupidity and gullibility for the bait of the Enemy; let my heart be hard after Your steps; let there not be a pace between us, Kind Shepherd.

Journal prayers.

Pray with praise music.

Pray while running. 

Don’t hold anything back in conversation with God. He knows anyway. 

Pray with friends. 

Pray with praise at the forefront of your mind. It will ease anxiety.

I want to learn to live so that to see someone is to pray for them. 

-Laubach

Pray and let God worry. - Martin Luther

Every time you pray, good things come that would not have if you hadn’t prayed.