Trouble and perplexity drive us to prayer, and prayer
driveth away trouble and perplexity. -Philipp Melancthon
Listening prayer is a way of freeing your mind so that God can speak to you and reveal whatever burdens are keeping you from a full relationship with Him or others. When Fred and I teach our seminars, we have our students write a letter to the Lord. It might go like this:
Dear Lord Jesus,
When I think about the situation I'm in today, this is how I feel about it.
As I look in my background to come up with the reason why I feel this way,
I don't have an answer. I'm awaiting what you want me to know.
After youv'e written some thoughts, sit quietly, pen in hand. Then, write down whatever thoughts come into your mind. Fred and i have been amazed by the way the Lord starts speaking when you open your mind to \him and began to record the thoughts He reveals to you. The students can hardly contain their excitement over having the Lord directly speak to them. Most likely, though, they've never heard Him because they haven't taken the time to listen.
A close friend describes listening prayers as follows: "if I went over to visit florence one afternoon, sat down, and told her everything that had happened to me in the last two weeks, and as soon as I got to the end of my story I said, "Well, thanks for listening. Good-bye." how would Florence feel? She'd think, "Wait , I didn't have a chance to respond." That's the way it is with God. Too often we say, "Lord, here's my problem," and then we shut the door and expect Him to break it down and force us to listen. God doesn't do that. We need to allow Him time to speak.
Listening prayer also helps us bring specific concerns or problems to the Lord, so we can hone in on certain trouble spots, such as guilt. So many times we offer generic prayers to God like, :My marriage is terrible. fix it." What God wants is for us to come to Him with the specifics and say, "Lord, I've spent some time on this. I know that I have a guilt problem. "Why do I have it?" Then listen. Write down what He says. Think about it. Pray about it. Be specific. The Lord will clean up the garbage in our life, but He'll only take away the trash that we put out.
The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you...
- Matthew 13:11
*Look into taking a hot air balloon flight to start off the fall.
May you have a blessed day feeling God's presence.
In His name and with His love, Kim Quile
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