This morning when I was out walking and talking with God, I asked Him a question that is a relatively new question for me to ask Him… and then I thought some more about why it took me over 30 years of prayer to ever think of it!
Over the years, my prayer life has shifted and changed and adapted and grown and matured as my relationship with God has grown and changed.
There were times when my prayers were list-driven.
There have been many prayers that were extremely random.
There have been times that I set aside to pray and purposefully quieted myself, and many more times when prayer was just me reaching out for God while I was in the middle of whatever messy situation I was in.
There have been hours when my prayer and worship intermingled and merged and overwhelmed me with the goodness of God.
There were seasons when I tried to structure my prayers, and then times when structure made me feel I was faking things.
But throughout all of these times, the prayers typically started with whatever was uppermost in my thoughts. And if I didn’t get distracted or pulled away to something else that life was throwing at me, then I’d think about whatever other things I wanted to pray about.
I’d like to highlight something in that last sentence, so I’ll repeat it.
I’d think about whatever other things I wanted to pray about.
After all those years, only last year did it occur to me to ask this question:
Lord, what would YOU like to talk about?
I realized that, if prayer is ultimately a conversation, then I had been controlling the conversations… for 35 years or more!
Imagine what would happen with our human friendships if every single time, one of them started the conversation, determined what the conversation would be about, and walked away when they didn’t have anything else to think about. What would happen if that person never let the other lead the conversation?
Wow.
I am very, very glad that God has a lot more patience and love and forgiveness than humans do! Because He’s still there, ready and waiting for me to go to Him, talk about my concerns, unload my burdens, and feel His love and comfort wrap around me.
I think He enjoys it now, though, when I say, “Well, Lord, here I am. What would You like to talk about?”
