As I sought to learn how to pray I found I had 5 main obstacles to prayer. They were as follows.
1) Too narrow a definition and understanding of prayer.
2) Distractions which caused my mind to wander from prayer.
3) Temptations which I turned to instead of God in prayer.
4) Satan's paralyzing attacks of intimidation, accusation and projections and the resulting anxiety.
5) My scrambled, disconnected interior life or soul - I had disconnected from my emotions so I was unable to discern what was going on within. Hence it was hard to open up and find words for what I was feeling and why.
I didn't know about all of these obstacles to start with but have become aware of them over time as God revealed them to me through various Christian traditions and my brothers and my sisters in Christ past and present who were much more advanced in the way of prayer than me.
Anyway I am going to give you a summarized conclusion and then write about some of the milestones/Aha! moments along the way in my journey. By the way I have experiences with God more often now but my relationship with God is not dependent on them. They are gifts of grace for which I am thankful but I don't try to cling to them because I have the Giver who is always present with me. However, I may not feel that presence. But it doesn't matter because I know the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are here.
Basically, it has been the written/memorized prayers that have revolutionized my prayer life and that God is using to address all of the obstacles above.
Have I arrived? No, definitely not. As the old saying goes, the more you know, the more you know you don't know.
Do I still pray in my own words? Yes, in fact, I can pray much more easily and effectively now because the written/memorized prayers keep me in touch with God long enough to work out my internal knots and they prime the pump so to speak. And actually, I don't think of them as the words of others. They have become my words and they often express what is going on inside, what I am feeling, my hopes, my fears, my aspirations and so on much better than my own words and more in line with God's will.
What about intercessory prayers for others? You all are getting prayed for much more than you used to.
And best of all, God has become more of a present living reality to me and in my life and less of an abstraction.
So if this sounds interesting to you, stay tuned...
Did you know that Jesus thirsts for you and that God desires our prayer times with Him much more than we do?
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