Where Praying Starts (3 of 4)

Where praying starts seems like something everyone, anyone knows. But is it? Where does praying start is a pretty important question if the answer can make praying easier for us, if the answer can make us more comfortable with praying.

Where Praying Starts

Where Praying Starts Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

No telling how many times I have wrestled with starting a blog post, a poem, or (long, long ago) papers for my college courses. The struggle starts with “where do I start?”. Real wrestling occurs with my implicit answer, “I don’t know!” Frustration comes into the match when “I don’t know” becomes “I have no idea!” and then moves on to “I don’t know how to come up with an idea!”

I suggest that praying becomes really easy when we stop trying to figure out the logical, human, human-life reason for the prayer. Then I offer that prayers do not really begin in our heads. Finally, it’s my belief that our thoughts do not originate our desire to pray. Although we may think they do.

Let me explain.

We receive in our hearts (our spiritual receptor) the notice of something worth praying about. We may not immediately think, “I should pray about that!”. However, somehow the desire for conscious communication with Spirit comes into our mind. Our mind sends the “Let’s pray (or ask for prayer)!” message to our body, usually our voice. (You may want to check the previous post, Praying Is Always Right for a bit more about this.)

The short version: praying really starts with God.

It’s very interesting that this opinion is shared by a variety of spiritual perspectives, in pretty different lingos.

3G Life

CRU (formerly the Campus Crusade for Christ) refers to the 3G Life (and it’s not about cell phone technology!)  It includes three elements of our relationship with God (Spirit):

The parentheses are mine. I mean “hearing” and “listening” not in the pure auditory sense of using our ears. I mean hearing and listening with our heart then transferring the message to our mind that we may act upon it physically.

Now, how does that relate to prayer? Suppose we hear with our hearts that something in our being will benefit from conscious connection with Spirit. Consider that our heart makes that clear in a way our mind can listen to it, understand it with our intellect. Finally, the instruction goes to our body essentially as “Pray on this!”. That action may occur in any form we choose.

The Bible and Prayer

Next, consider that Matthew the apostle said,  …[God] knows what you need before you ask him. 

Turning that arounds makes it definite to me that my knowing what I need (or want or project or believe) comes from God. If that’s true, then my awareness of feeling need (or want or projection or belief) and that praying about it is a good idea must come from God as well.

Our Senses and Prayer

Finally, I’d like to bring this home to the physical being. Our human being is a physical being. We are created from Spirit and we are a creation of Spirit. That spiritual existence is the essence of our physical, human costume. It is not limited, certainly, to the costume. The physical being has as its most essential tools for human existence our 5 senses. These act and react to the universe.

Our eyes see the sky, the earth, other humans, the rain, cars. With our ears we hear music and crying and thunder and traffic and sirens. The sense of smell detects campfire smoke and garlic and roses and skunks. How often does something that comes to you through your senses provoke the thought of a prayer? The sight or sound or smell or touch or taste may actually give you reason for prayer or it may indirectly make you think of a reason to pray. Either way, the prayer, the praying started with Spirit.

Consider, then, that praying is meant to be. We are gifted with the opportunity to connect, to communicate with Spirit. Spirit is where praying starts. Then, we get to participate in it. That’s an awesome gift. Awesome, too, that we can participate in an unlimited number of ways, none of them wrong.

Gratitude to know where praying starts

Good Friend God,
with great gratitude and comfort I know
you originate my desire to pray.
I know, too, you guide the origin of my prayers
and my ability to offer prayer for others.
I love as more and more I learn
to hear you with my heart
then let my mind listen to my heart
and enjoy my body praying with you,
for whatever reasons you start
in me.
And so it is. And so I thank you, God. Amen.

Love & blessings,
Tim

 

 

November 11, 2019

 

Posted on November 11, 2019 at 5:45 am by Tim · Permalink
In: God, Prayer, Praying · Tagged with: