better than flossing

"God bless you and keep you,
God smile on you and gift you,
God look you full in the face and make you prosper."

Numbers 6 brings us the Aaronic Blessing. It's familiarity suprised me. Pastors Dave and Wendy use it to close out every worship service.

What strikes me is the wording. I guess I've been really thinking about the real meanings of words in relation to prayer lately. Particularly why we say certain things. Is it our conception of God that had motivated us to talk to Him as though He knew nothing about us? Perhaps the lack of a physical presence suggests to us a lack of spiritual presence.

In prayer, I find myself talking about the things going on in my life in great detail, as though God had no knowledge of the circumstances. Part way through, I catch myself and end up saying something like, "Well, you know what's going on."

I guess it seems to me that I am either telling everything or nothing when I pray. Perhaps that's why I've gotten into the meditation so much (keeps me from blabbering on).

And I try to avoid the "just" prayers that we've talked about, where I ask for God to "just do..." certain things in my life.

I don't want to say that I'm having a crisis of faith or that I've lost my belief in the power of prayer, because neither would be true. But I am having conflicting thoughts about how to pray.

In the past few weeks, I've received notice from Malone College that two people I know will be going on mission trips and in addition to asking for monetary donations, the notices also ask for whether I will be able to pray for those on the trips. This really got me thinking. Okay, if I pray only once for the trip, am I not being faithful to those doing the work? Or if I pray repeatedly for them, am I doubting God? Doubting His ability to care for them or doubting whether he was listening the first time or not?

It could be that I am overthinking all of this.

Maybe it is our physical and conscious act of talking to God about the goings-on of our lives is what pleases Him? Then again, He certainly doesn't need to hear from us (He doesn't really need anything). So, it must be that we need the connection. Perhaps this comes back to the idea of the spiritual disciplines. The discipline itself is not what is important, but keeping the connection to God open is the goal. Meditation, fasting, study, and prayer all serve as ways to connect to God. And as long as that connection remains constant, we are less likely to fall into sin. So, I guess if you believe that, it doesn't really matter what you pray or how you pray, but more just that you pray. In Wild at Heart, John Eldredge writes, "...most men have a hard time sustaining any sort of devotional life because it has no vital connection to recovering and protecting their strength; it feels about as important as flossing. But if you saw your life as a great battle and you knew you needed time with God for your very survival, you would do it. Maybe not perfectly - nobody ever does and that's not the point anyway - but you would have a reason to seek him."