old journal entries 2002 A.D. ...

04-03-02

I love praying with my eldest child, Kami! It is an adventure at times just to heart what comes out of her mouth! As we were getting ready to pray for Mommy in the living room, I thought I would share with her how much God loved her. I asked her if she knew that Jesus loved her very much. She eagerly nodded her head. Then she asked me, “Daddy, where is God?” I hesitated and responded, “Well he’s right here with us!” She didn’t even pause before she said, “ But I don’t see him…is he behind us?” I tried to explain to her the doctrine of omnipresence and the invisible attributes of God and who how is Spirit, but I think I lost her after, “Let me explain…”. I love her to death!

In prayer today, she said something that struck me as funny, but after I thought about it for a little while, I started to recognize how often we as Christians pray the same way. She prayed for our lunch and said, “God, praise the day, thank you for Aly’s shots, thank you for food and thank you for all the other stuff…Amen.!” We laughed a bit and commented on the phrase “all the other stuff”.

Some times we pray like that, we don’t want to wrestle in prayer or labor in prayer, so we just pray that God will take care of all the other stuff that we don’t have the heart or time to pour out to him. Somehow I think God knows the depth of our prayers and is left wanting when we pray with such generality, such shallowness, and such rashness. I wonder if we don’t see him moving in power, because we don’t pray with power. I wonder if God doesn’t give us the time of day, because we struggle to give him the time of day, rather, the time of minute! Honestly, I stink at prayer!

When will I get serious about prayer…what am I waiting for?