Prayer

How else do we connect with God but through prayer? I know He speaks to us through the Scriptures, but I sorely miss my time in prayer. Maybe its the way God made me -- the eye in the body who's concerned about prayer rather than the toe who wants to make certain the poor are taken care of. I have precious memories from my junior year of college, a time I connected with the LORD in a way that has left me longing for it since.

I forget that looking backward is not the way to move forward (duh.) -- nonetheless, I get caught up in that a lot. Don't you? Don't you ever think about the things you want from life, looking at and pining for yesteryear and its comforting reality? It has already occurred, the good things and the lessons learned and the stunning growth -- I can look back and know they happened. It requires no faith to look to and pine for the past rather than pray and hope for the future.

I think so often of that year of my life. God met me that year and answered some of my deepest questions.

Do you really exist?
Yes.
Can you prove it?
Of course!
Then show me.
No.
Why not?
You need something else.
And just what would that be?
Faith.

(This is, of course, an abridged version. VERY abridged.)

I learned so much about faith and prayer and belief and asking and crying out. I read the Psalms all the time that year. It was good for me. So I want to re-create it -- but I forget that looking back is not the way to move forward. There are, perhaps, other lessons God wants me to learn. But I do know one thing: I want to pray. Really bad. I don't think pining for an experience with God akin to one you've already had is looking backward. I hope not, at least.

I've been reading The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer -- very slowly. I started it in September, I think, and I'm about half-way through right now. (I wasn't a good reader during pregnancy, which is surprising now that I think about it -- I had all the time in the world compared to now. What a bummer.) I've been thinking about the reality of God, as Tozer describes it -- God is The Reality, yet we somehow think the air we breathe and the ground we walk on to be more real than the God we worship. I want to understand God's reality. I want to know He's as real as the wind on my face. I want to know Him as the psalm writers know Him. I want to pray.

I really think praying might be where this adventure begins. How can my small mind understand the reality of God if I never ask Him to act specifically and, therefore, never see His answers? He's marveled me in the past, but I'm so forgetful. I want to live within the marvel.

As I reread this, it sounds as if I want a lot. I've got to think about this more.