E-MESS: Prayer

Hey Wally, I was listening to another Christian radio station when they started talking about how our prayers shouldn't be like a monologue. That our prayers should be like a conversation where we actually pause from what we are saying and listen for God's voice, like a normal conversation between two humans would go. I've never heard it put like that before. It made sense, that we should talk to God like we have an actually relationship with Him and not some Santa Clause we give our (prayer) list to... but then it didn't make sense about listening for God's voice.... God doesn't verbally speak to us like He did in the old testament, does He? If that's not how He speaks to us then how does He? I tried "pausing" when praying, throughout the day, but I never "heard" anything... Have you ever heard of praying like this? Is this really how we're suppose to pray? I usually consider myself a some-what strong Christian, but hearing this about prayer has confused me completely... have I been praying wrong all these years? How do you have a conversation with God when He doesn't reply verbally or even reply right away?...

I get how prayer can be confusing. I think it is a little different for everyone. God doesn't talk to me audibly but I know he is speaking to me in my soul when I feel things I know I would not come up with or the big test is when it is something so completely unselfish. That is when I know because I have the ability to look out for myself first many times. I think maybe what they were getting at was many times we tell God what to do and how to do it and don't want to wait for his timing. We give God our "to do" list then get frustrated when life doesn't look like we designed it. I am learning to pray for less outcomes and more for God's will to be done in the situation. I think that is how Jesus taught us to pray. Plus, it really helps give me peace with the things I can't understand. Also, if you pray for God's will in your life no matter how that looks it will change the way you pray and what you pray for. I do get being silent and feeling God verses just having a one way conversation. The Bible does talk about being still and listening. I think it is in those quiet moment that we get direction even if it is not audible. I hope that helps a little and more than that I hope you learned your lesson for listening to another Christian station. :) Thanks so much for getting what we are trying to do with the show. Later