Let me peep your game!

I'm curious! How do you talk to God? I'm not asking what you say. I'm just asking how you say it.

I used to believe that there was a certain way that I had to approach God. That I had to be in the right frame of mind and that I needed to be in beast prayer mode. I tried to model myself after the master. You know. "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come." But that feels too formal and stiff for me. I am not by any means criticizing how Jesus taught us to pray. It's just a lot to live up to coming from someone who never sinned..(I so can't relate to THAT)..and to someone who loved God (and me) so much He sacrificed Himself. Let's face it. JC is a hard act to follow.

So. Then I tried to remember how I heard my pastors and the elders of my church pray. I love them all. But there doesn't really seem to be a method to their madness. Don't get me wrong. My church is a praying church. Open Door literally has an open door policy. We help people in need and we feed people every week. Our sermons are available on a local cable station and on CD. And all of that is well and good. But we pray PRAY. That's what we do. We love on you. And we pray. When my church prays as a family, I get in there and I pray like they do because I believe it's important to be on one accord.  But when it's just me..I can't pray like they pray.

So after I realized that I didn't quite have the connection that I wanted with God when I tried to do it like other people. I finally just decided to begin to talk to Him the way I would my go to person. (Remind me to tell you the story about how He none to gently pretty much told me that He was supposed to be my go to person!) I tell Him about my day. We talk about how my kids are. My family. My friends. We talk about what they need or the things that they want. We talk about the things I want for them. We just sit and talk. Sometimes we even sit and laugh. Sometimes I just sit and thank Him for all of the above.

Sometimes I feel Him out to see if He is ready to hear the thing that I really want to talk about. You know how that goes. You butter God up before you dive right in to the steak and potatoes. We talk about how thankful I am for the sun that day. Or how thankful I am for a certain lesson I learned in scripture. Or how much I appreciate how he answered this prayer or that prayer. I mean all those things. But sometimes you just need to know if God can handle it if you keep it real with him. Or more to the point. You need to know if you can handle keeping it real with God. Ha!

Sometimes there are the times when you know that you have messed up. You lost your temper. You dabbled in some things that He clearly told you to leave alone. You hadn't been spending as much time with Him as you should. You haven't been making good use of the gifts that He's given you. You know..the shamefaced, head down, maybe if I make myself small enough He won't be so mad at me routine. Those are the times when I sorta just go through the motions of praying. "God? Thank you. I'M SORRY! I love you. Talk to you tomorrow. Good night!" (Look, don't judge me..just by being honest with you I realize that I sound two right now!) And don't get me wrong. He NEVER lets me off the hook that easily. He may not deal with me right then..but the next day..He is sitting there tapping His foot with that.."Umhmm..I bet you thought I forgot, didn't you?"..look on His face.

SIDEBAR: I bet you think that I am crazy. No. Quite the opposite. God came and got me at a time in my life when I needed Him to be real. To talk to me. To listen to me. To love on me. To hold me. I needed God to make it better. I needed Him to surround me with His presence. AND HE DID. HE DOES. So yes, we joke. And He gives me looks. And He gives me hugs. My God is real to me. As real as you are. Sometimes too much so and I feel like I need a break from His ever watchful eye..(but that's a topic for yet another blog!)

Where was I?

Sometimes my stuff is so huge. So unbelievably messy. I can't even find words. It's just me sitting before God with tears streaming down my face. All I can do is shrug my shoulders and shake my head. And I cry myself to sleep. Truly. I can't begin to tell you how many nights I have just felt overwhelmed with the stuff in my head. And in my heart. And I just cried myself to sleep. I used to feel so guilty because I thought I should just magically be able to read my bible. Or pray. And poof! Be okay. But I realized that it was okay for me to get it out. To let it go. Sometimes you need a good cry. But the beauty of it all is that He was always waiting for me in the morning. Truth be told. I'm sure He wiped a good bit of my tears away during the night. He had to because in the morning things always seemed so much clearer. So much easier. And I am always able to talk to Him about the things that had me all tied up in knots the night before.

So. That's just a few ways that I talk to God. But I'd really like to hear about how you do it. Seriously. If you have God's ear...I'd really like to know what you're doing!

Use the contact form to email me directly. Post your comments here. Or find me on Facebook and post them there. But Let's Talk About It!

PS...we will talk about how God talk's TO me in a later blog!