A Conversation

Pray more. I should have clarified.

I pray every day, throughout the day.

Over the years,  my prayers have evolved from asking for the absurd, "Please God, let me win the lotto!"  and negotiating with the Divine - "God, if you let this happen, I promise I will..."  to prayers of praise and thanksgiving.

Often, too, I pray for others - not that their souls will be saved or that they will have/get/be whatever I think they should have/get/be. Rather, that they build a relationships with God that allows them to be moved by the Spirit.

And I pray for myself, - for guidance, for all things good, for the abundance in my life that I know God wants for me.

One of the challenges with prayer is that it's sometimes approached as a monologue. We relate to God the same way as we've gotten into the habit of doing with our earthly connections  - we  don't listen. We say what we want to say, ask questions, seek understanding, and then  we move on with our ears - and hearts - closed. That's where meditation comes into play for me.

I meditate daily...usually during the quiet of  the morning before anyone else wakes...sometimes in the evenings, after hours of facebooking and blogging, when I need to wind down. Meditation, to me, is part of the conversation - it's when I do the listening instead of the yapping.

It's difficult to put into words the calm that envelopes me when I clear my mind and sit with what God is telling me. So, I won't even try.

We ask for things in our lives and yet when God answers us, we shrug it off...we think that He's wrong in the direction He's sending us...the answer involves too much work...we keep waiting for the answer that we want to hear. By ignoring His answers, we miss the blessings - all of the gifts - He's trying to bestow on us.
 
God ALWAYS answers us. He never leaves us hanging. Just listen.