pray, pray, pray

finished up a praying life by paul miller, learned a lot about prayer and was convicted about my own praying life. let me jot down some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• Strong Christians do pray more, but they pray more because they realize how weak they are. They don't try to hide it fro themselves. Weakness is the channel that allows them to access grace.
• A praying life isn't simply a morning prayer time; it is about slipping into prayer at odd hours of the day, not because we are disciplined but because we are in touch with our own poverty of spirit, realizing that we can't even walk through a mall or our neighborhood without the help of the Spirit of Jesus.
• We become anxious when we take a godlike stance, occupying ourselves with things too great for us.
• We can't remain neutral with evil. We either give up and distance ourselves, or we learn to walk with the Shepherd. There is no middle ground.
  
• Thankfulness isn't a matter of forcing yourself to see the happy side of life....Thanking God restores the natural order of our dependence on God. It enables us to see life as it really is.
• This is what it means to abide -- to include him in every aspect of our lives.
  
• Whenever you love, you reenact Jesus' death.
• Living a gospel story exposes our idols, our false sources of love.
  
• God is continually speaking to each of us, but not just through our intuition. Seeing God's activity in the details of our lives enhances the application of God's Word.
• To correctly discern when God is speaking to us, we need to keep the Word and Spirit together.
  

i want to elaborate on couple of them, mainly because these points connect closely to what im currently struggling with, and its really eyeopening and convicting to see where my heart is.

"When you stop trying to control your life and instead allow your anxieties and problems to bring you to God in prayer, you shift from worry to watching...As you wait, you begin to see him work, and your life begins to sparkle with wonder. You are learning to trust again."

• its very difficult to allow anxieties and problems the way it is when tribulations hit, at least i know it is for me. i dont like tribulations. i want to at least do something to make it better on my own power, but that means that im not trusting God on bringing forth the trials, that He has a plan for them to happen. instead of being like a kid and wondering what God is doing, i just want it to pass by as soon as possible. i missed out on many opportunities to marvel at the work of God and praise Him for them...
  

"...power in prayer comes from being in touch with your weakness....Learned desperation is at the heart of a praying life."

• one of the barriers to my own fruitful prayer life is probably being desperate for God, desperate enough to pray, to constantly keep in touch with God. and in order to become desperate, we have to realize and confront our weaknesses, that apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). examine our hearts and pray that God will reveal our weaknesses.
  

"Prayer was mainly about us being with God and not about God answering our prayers."

• come on, lets be real. how many of us hope to get an answer to our prayers when we pray? simply look at the content of our prayers, whats the proportion of supplication compare to the rest? rather than focusing so much on the prayers that God hasn't answered, enjoying the presence of God as we pray would probably add so much more flavors in our praying lives. connecting to the previous points, i guess i need to realize my weakness and desperation to be with God in order to enjoy being with God. i mean, you probably wouldnt long for being with a significant other without realizing how desperate you want to be with that person, right?
  

"Christian rush to "not my will, but yours be done" without first expressing their hearts...when we stop being ourselves with God, we are no longer in real conversation with God...If we ask nothing of God, we are left adrift in an evil world. Such a position may feel spiritual because it seems unselfish, but it is unbiblical because it separates the real world of our desires from God's world. "

• being real with God, bring forth our true selves to God through prayer. how often do we honestly express what we want to God? rather than truthfully express my needs and desires to Him, i simply tag "may your will be one" in my prayers, thinking that im letting God take control of my life when in fact im refusing to admit what my heart longs for, blocking out God from the real me. i wasnt in a real conversation with God.
  

"People are far too complicated; the world is far too evil; and my own heart is too off center to be able to love adequately without praying. I need Jesus."

• our heart is unable to love without connecting with God daily, for The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). we cant trust our hearts. this heart of mine can deceive me of being loving when in fact im just being selfish, if im not connect to God daily through prayer.

gahhh, i think i should start to keep a prayer journal again, writing down not only prayers, but all the blessings that God bestows upon me. after all, my little brain has limited capacity in comparison to God's infinite love and grace.