Friday, October 23, 2015

How to Get Closer to Jesus through Prayer

Hey, Gabriel Girls!

 Today we’re going to talk about one of my favorite subjects: Prayer. 


Now before you think BORING in capital letters, hear me out.

 Do you know what prayer is? It’s not reciting a bunch of pre-written words over and over. It’s not a list of your needs. And it’s not a formula for getting what you want.

 Prayer is a conversation with the Creator of the whole universe, the God Who created you!

 WOW!  Does that blow your mind?  

 Think about it.  The same God Who created the Milky Way and the galaxies and the stars and the planets and the sun and the moon and the oceans and the mountains--and on and on and on--wants to have a conversation with YOU!!!

 I don’t know about you, but that truth makes me feel very, very special.

 To think that God wants to spend time talking with me is amazing! But that is the truth. And He wants to spend time talking with you.

 So, how do you have a conversation with God?  The same way you would with your best friend. 

How do you talk to your best friend? You use your ordinary language. You’re honest and open about how you’re feeling. You share secrets.

 That’s the way God wants you to talk to Him. 

 Now, when you talk with your best friend, do you do all the talking? Probably not. In fact, when you go to your best friend for advice, you probably listen more than you talk.

 Well, it’s the same with God. When you talk with God, it’s better to spend more time listening to what He has to say than to do all the talking. Of course, you can vent to God and He’ll gladly listen (See our earlier blog post on how to vent the right way).  But it’s a good idea to spend most of your prayer time listening to what God has to say.

 Why? Because God is a whole lot smarter than we are. Plus, He knows you better than you know yourself because He made you. He knows how you function. He knows what’s going on inside you. And when you get broken, He knows how to fix you.

 The neat thing about prayer is that you can have an all-day conversation with God as well as a special time of prayer. In other words, you can talk with Him about everything throughout the day.  Because Jesus is inside you, He goes wherever you go. He’s always there, ready to have a conversation with you. 

 This habit of talking with God throughout the day is called practicing the presence of God. In fact, there’s a great little book about having an all-day conversation with God.  It’s called The Practice of the Presence of God and was written by a monk who lived in France back in the 1600s named Brother Lawrence. You can get a free copy of his book for Kindle by clicking here.

If you start having an on-going conversation with Jesus throughout the day, you will grow to love Him more and more and to know Him better and better. As a result, you will discover that everything you could ever need or ever want is found in Him and Him alone. 

 _______________________________________________
Copyright 2015 by Dr. MaryAnn Diorio. All Rights Reserved.

To Become a Gabriel Girl, you need to qualify as follows:
  • You need to be born again. This means that you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and the Lord of your life.If you don't know how to do this, click here.
  • You need to have a desire to tell others about Jesus wherever you go and whenever you can.
  • You need to commit to following Jesus by reading the Bible and praying every day and by obeying Jesus' command to love Him and to love your neighbor.
    ____________________________________________________
You can find me on the following Social Media Venues:
Amazon Author Central: www.amazon.com/author/maryanndiorio
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)