A Concord Pastor Comments: Pause for Prayer: SATURDAY 3/7

Photo by Mark Penta

A few years back, Mark Penta posted this photo on FaceBook with the comment: "I like the three sections; earth, water, air. All I did was show up..."

Prayer is something like that: showing up, showing up for God - for God who is waiting for me... But, once I show up, what do I say? How do I begin? Let me suggest an "opener" for those times when we "show up" for prayer...

A prayer to begin my prayer...

Lord Jesus:
you are here now,
always
and only
because you want me
and want to be with me.

Lord Jesus:
I am here now,
again
and only
because I want you
and want to be with you.

Lord Jesus,
help me surrender
to your love,
your mercy
and your peace...

(As with many prayers, this one can be prayed over and over again until it becomes part of you.

To pray is to recognize that I'm in God's presence,
in the presence of God who wants me, who seeks me, who desires to be with me.

To pray is to be still,
that I might know the Lord's presence and hear his voice.

His voice might be the silence in which I sit...

His voice might be my heartbeat, the pulse of his love within me...

His voice might be my breath, the spirit of his life sustaining me...

His voice might speak in the scripture I read or the verse I pray by heart...

His voice might be the consolation of simply knowing, trusting, that he is with me,
that he is always with me, that he will never leave my side...

I need to keep in mind that every time I go to pray,
it's the Spirit's prompting that has drawn me to pray...

I need to keep in mind that when I go to pray, I need not look for the Lord
- he's there ahead of me, waiting for me to join him...

I need to keep in mind that when I pray
even confused, clumsy ramblings are music to God's ears...

Help me keep in mind that simply to sit, in silence, in the Lord's presence
is, in itself, a beautiful prayer...