VERBAL PRAYER

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think about prayer.

Prayer is as natural as breathing.  Often it cannot be helped.  Often it surprises us like a love letter in the mail.

There are three kinds of prayer:  verbal, meditative, and contemplative.  I will write about verbal prayer for this post.

There are five kinds of verbal prayer:  adoration, thanksgiving, confession, intercession, and petition.

ADORATION

Adoration is praising God.  This prayer is easy to pray, but sometimes I wonder if God really wants us to keep telling Him or Her how great He or She is.  Is it annoying?

However, somehow our hearts cannot help but express our love and awe for the ground of our being.

My brother once attended a Pentecostal revival where he "fell out" and began speaking in tongues.  We argued somewhat about this.  He insisted that all Christians must speak in tongues to be truly blessed by God.  I refused to denigrate his experience, but I insisted that my devotion to theology, writing, and Bible reading were just as much a connection to God as speaking in tongues.  What we give to God adores God.

Thanksgiving

We must thank God when it rains if we thank God when the sun shines.  I believe Satchel Paige said that.  I agree.  I thank God for everything except suffering.  

I never pray, "Thanks, God, for my chronic back pain," but rather I thank God for my being able to love my life-with-pain.  

Suffering sucks.  Life, with or without suffering, is a gift.

I will never thank God for anyone's death, or my own, for I do not believe everything that happens is the will of an all controlling deity.  Rather, I believe we reside in our God of love whose will is grace everlasting.  I grieve the loss of grace my loved one's presence gave to my life, lingering only within my heart's memory.  For knowing that, I thank God always.

So in all things let us give thanks…if not only because we still live to give it.

Blessings…