Prayer

Friday evening Tim was at a "guys night" with some of the men from our church. I put the kids to bed and then settled down to debate what to watch for the night. Movie? TV show on Hulu? Just listen to some music or a sermon? I was catching up on blog reading when I received a call from Matt and Jeana letting me know that on the National Youth Workers Convention site they were going to be live streaming Francis Chan speaking at their Atlanta convention and they thought I might want to watch it. Of course! I called my friend, Renee, to let her and her husband know about it and then settled in. I wasn't sure what to expect since he was speaking to youth leaders/workers/volunteers, but I'm so glad I tuned in.
The whole message was fantastic, but at the end I was convicted in a big, fat way when he started to tell about how a few years ago he sat his staff down (and he said he was going to be doing it again soon) and asked them a question. He said he had a staff of about 60-70 people (by the way, Chan does not get paid for being a pastor. He told the elder board he did not feel right taking a salary. He also has a fund that all of his book royalties go into that help missionaries/Christians in another country that are being persecuted.)
Anyways, he told his staff that they were going to go around and every person had to answer the question on whether or not they were spending at least one hour in prayer each day. He said that if they answered "no" then he was going to remove them and find someone who does to take their place.
This was like a kick in the butt to me because the subject of prayer has been on my mind a lot lately. Not prayer itself, unfortunately, but thinking about it. I think that because my Ladies' Bible Study is going through "Discerning the Voice of God" by Priscilla Shirer - which deals a lot with prayer - I have been noticing how little I pray intentionally. There are the before-the-meal-prayers, before-bed-prayer, and the help-me!-prayers.
Prayer scares me. I don't know why. The thought of sitting down and talking with God for an extended amount of time kind of freaks me out. I worry about what to say, am I going to pray the correct way? Is there a right or wrong way to pray? Things like that. However, I felt that God is speaking to me through Shirer and Chan so I had better listen.
So this week I have been trying some new things based on Scripture. First of all, during the time I was praying yesterday, I felt like God was bringing Psalm 97 into my head. So I read it along with the next 3 chapters, through Psalm 100. Many verses stood out to me, but regarding ways to pray, Psalm 100:2b jumped out:
"Come into his presence with singing!"
Hmmmm.
I also remembered something we had talked about in Bible Study along with my verse I picked to memorize for that week:
"Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few." -Ecclesiastes 5:2
We talked about how when we come before the Lord (and there are numerous verses that talk about this) we need to pretty much be silent. We are so quick to jump in with our requests and miseries. Not that these are not important to God, but do you love when your children come before you complaining all the time or talking about what they need or want in their lives?
So this is what I tried today that I think I may end up using for my prayer time, although I realize it can and should change based on the day and what is going on in life: I first listened and sang along with some songs from the worship CD: "Any Given Day." I like this CD because it's very passionate and focused. After coming into His presence with some joyful "noise" (since I don't sing well) I just sat quietly for awhile.
Wow, hard.
When you can hear the dryer in the laundry room, the heat kicking on through the vents, the vehicles driving by outside...you realize it's hard to surround yourself with silence. It really is an exercise to train yourself to block out noise. Our Bible study teacher had also recommended keeping some paper and a pen by you, and when a thought pops into your head and you feel you're going to be distracted, write it down and then forget about it until later. Like today I thought, "Oh! I have to remember to pick up___________before tomorrow." Wrote it down and pushed it aside. Side note: this time of prayer was obviously being done while the kids were napping or else this whole moments of silence thing would be a joke.
After that I followed the model we learned in youth group growing up: ACTS
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication/Intercession
I enjoyed my time and felt like it all became more natural after I got over the thought that it's hard to find things to say to God.
Anyways, how much time would you say you spend in prayer a day/week/month and what are ways that you pray or what are your thoughts on prayer? I'm curious!