prayer

hey guys... may and i just came back from the prayer room about an hour ago

for those of you who don't know what the prayer room is... sara tellio came up with the idea to start a 24/7 prayer in which as you can probably guess, a prayer that lasts for 24 hours, 7 days a week (168 hours). so we have a prayer room at the baptist college of ministry across the road from upper UH. with the help of other organizations and churches, our mission is to have non-stop prayer for one whole week. mostly the prayers are directed to reaching the lost, especially on campus. God loves everyone in this world and so should we.

so may and i had the 8-9p shift tonight and we got there around 755 and we met this guy named jarret who had the 7-8 shift. during our shift i just played slow, soothing music on a guitar that helped me remind myself about God. may colored in a journal, read books, and did some other things. we prayed a couple of 5 minute prayers also. before we knew it, our hour was over. but i wanted to stay there longer so we did and just when the clock hit 9p, dean came in. he's this super cool guy from campus crusade who knows how to play a lot of instruments and also teaches. 

dean came in with something weighing on his mind. he felt like he hasn't been praying as much as he should have. he says he came into the room intending to pray for the whole hour because it's been a long time since he had done that. and you know what, it's true for me also. i can't remember the last time i actually sat in a quiet place and prayed. you know what i mean? it's been a while since i sat in a quiet place, with nothing around me to distract me like music or TV or games, and just talk to God. i felt so ashamed of myself when dean said that because i knew in my heart that it was true for me too. here i am telling everyone to pray multiple times daily and i myself don't do it. i love the way dean put it by saying, "prayer became a religion". i think he meant that prayer became something he had to do instead of something he truly loved doing. and that was true in my life also. do you love praying? or do you pray because you have to? God tells us to pray and so we do. we talk about sincere prayers and how God only hears sincere prayers. well i realized that sincere prayers only come from people who love praying, who love talking to God. we shouldn't pray just to pray. instead we should pray because we love doing it. 

anyway, because of his words may and i felt like praying for dean and so i started off and took about 2 minutes, may took about 1 minute, but dean took about a half hour. now to some of you that might seem long, but being there made it seem short. a lot of us pray with a sense of formality in our prayers. meaning that a lot of our prayers sound the same. we open with a greeting to God and then pray for requests, then we thank God, and then end it. we pray to God like how we would talk to our boss or teacher or some other authority figure. understand that i'm not saying that it's bad. but what i've learned since joining campus crusade is that talking with God can be informal in a sense and yet still be sincere. for example, have you ever addressed God as "Daddy"? or how bout laugh or chuckle in the middle of a prayer because of your admiration and because your so in awe with the power and supremacy of God. in my opinion, the prayer seemed more sincere because it was as if dean was talking to his biological dad when we was just a little kid. and that's what God wants us to do right? to come to him as a child, believing and trusting that He'll always provide anything and can do anything. also there shouldn't be a specific structure in prayer between the beginning and end. meaning that when you greet God, you're free to say anything you want. you can switch subjects randomly, stay on one subject, laugh with God if you feel like it, and stuff like that. anything that will make the prayer more sincere helps. finally, you don't need to close your eyes during prayer. if you recall from the bible, Jesus looked up when He prayed to the Father. we just close our eyes to prevent distraction. up to you. as long as it's from your heart. oh yah... don't forget the "Amen".

i'm gonna try pray prayers that are more sincere to God. what's the use of praying if you're not sincere about it? it's just a waste of time. much like my life. if i don't spend my life serving God to the best of my ability, then what good is it? a life must have a purpose, and God already provided the purpose in the context of His Word. i challenge anyone who's reading this to pray a sincere prayer to God. it can be long or short, as long as you know in your heart that it's truly sincere. remember the feeling afterwards, because that's a feeling you're going to wanna hold on to and experience over and over again.

thanks :p luv ya