Too Much Pie and Milkshakes

Hiiiiiiiiiiii internet world. It's been like, forever since I have posted something. I wanted to quickly praise Jesus for the very near completion of my debut EP. I expect it to be available online within the next couple of weeks. I'm so excited for what my friends/partners/producers Trevar and Branden and myself have put together for the glory of God. 

Okay so today I ate like I was dying. I had two zebra cakes, a large chocolate milkshake from Steak N' Shake, and then a piece of pie from O'Charley's. (That is just the list of desserts I had today). So I am grateful for gluten and for desserts in general. Okay so now that the rambling for today's post is done, time to talk about Jesus and our relationship with Him. God put it on my heart to talk about prayer.

John MacArthur gave a very powerful sermon on prayer a while back and said the following: 

"And not only that, prayer lines you up properly with God. When we're told to pray, we are told to pray in the Spirit. Now what it means to pray in the Spirit is to pray consistently with the Spirit of God. So prayer not only moves God to act but prayer is to align us with the will and purpose of God. When we pray in the will of God or in accord with God's will we are lining up with His purposes. And so prayer has a definite effect of lining us up with God's purposes, as well as causing God to act."

I want to specifically talk about prayer and how to do it for praying is like breathing. Reading the bible is eating and praying is like breathing. Prayer really is important. We talk a lot about prayer and we throw the word around but prayer is a tremendous power. Someone once said, "Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence." And prayer activates the power of God. That's putting the same thing in a simple term. Prayer activates the power of God. God moves in response to the prayers of His people. Some would say that prayer is simply talking to God. Isn't that the first thing we try to do as newborns? Communicate? Well, communication takes two to tango. When you pray to God, why are you praying? 

When in prayer we have to remember to be intentional with what we are saying. But what is more important is to be intentional when listening to God. If we knew what we were doing with our lives and what was going on and knew absolutely everything about everything then we wouldn't need to pray now would we? God's will and God's will alone is what is perfect. Not ours. When we read the Bible, God talks to us. When we pray, we talk to Him. And you've got to have both sides or you don't have conversation. Nobody likes a one-sided conversation. Now all Christians pray. We all talk to God sometimes. We don't all pray right. We don't all pray the way we ought to. A lot of Christians pray wrong. In the first place, we spend a lot of time asking for stuff we don't need. Did you ever know that? "Lord, give me this, give me that, give me that," and the Lord knows if He gave it to us it would only mess us up so He doesn't.

So is there only one kind of prayer? Absolutely not. There are manifold different prayers. It isn't to be sophisticated, it isn't to be formal or informal, it's just anything. Paul says in Ephesian 6:18 "Praying always with all kinds of prayer." Any kind of prayer. You could be crying out, "O God," you know, in a terrible time of stress. Or you could be saying, "Lord, this is a terrific day, I'm really happy, I just want You to know I'm checking in." You know, that's prayer. Any kind of communion with God at any point, at any level, on any subject-communion with God is prayer. Now I know this seems simple, but you can physically pray in many different ways as well. 

You can pray kneeling, standing, head down, eyes closed, eyes open, hands up, eyes on the heavens and open, WHATEVER! The bible says that all of these things are okay. Now that doesn't mean that prayer is lackluster and to be done in a manner that isn't fully committed. Prayer prepares us. Prayer gets us ready for the temptation that we will face daily. We sometimes want to sleep more than we are praying. You know, Peter had a problem, he was always falling asleep in prayer meeting and Jesus said to him, "You know, if you stayed awake and prayed you wouldn't be in the mess you're in. Watch and pray unless you enter into temptation." You see, Peter didn't pray so he didn't have himself girded really for the temptation. If you pray more than you'd sleep, you be better off.

Sometimes prayer is immediate. "It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear."

Sometimes it is delayed and sometimes it is different than what we thought it would be. 

Sometimes we may pray for something and we have to wait because God knows a lot more than we know and He knows it's better to come later than to come now. Luke 18:7:"And shall not God avenge His own elect who cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?" In other words, sometimes it's painful and you have to go through a lot of things and sometimes God's chosen people have had to suffer and suffer and suffer and suffer and it seems like it goes on and on and on but God will answer even though it takes him a long time to get his answer. And that's because He has a purpose.

I think one of the most important things to remember is to remember that God isn't deaf. Prayer is not vain repetition. "GOD PLEASE OH PLEASE DO THIS FOR ME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!" Yo homie, He heard you the first time and you don't need to beg. You don't have to say 48 Hail Marys in a row to get God's attention. "When you are praying do not use meaningless repetition as the gentiles do..." Matthew 6:7. It's not that kind of thing, although there is petition and there is earnestness in it. Prayer is simply conversation. And sometimes in your life you may say, "God, it's sure a nice day and I hope You're enjoying it like I am and I just want to thank You for it." 

"Repetitive prayer is as significant a prayer as if you stood up in a pulpit and said a bunch of theology because all you're doing is communing with God." - John MacArthur again.

So these are just some of me just rambling and some thoughts and notes I have gathered over time on prayer and I hope maybe some of this helped. Love you all. Gonna go eat ice cream now.