The Lord of the Prayers: Humanity in the Heavens

In Lord of the rings, the one “ring” of power is cut from the hand of Sauron and all of the rules of power and authority are in the hands of the beholder. Centuries pass and the heart of men keep the ring from being destroyed. That is until the Fellowship of the Ring and a young hobbit named Frodo embarks on the journey.

In my humble opinion, As believers in Christ Jesus, the one power that was lost in the garden and was won back on the cross was Prayer. And as an unqualified hobbit like man, I want to embark on a journey to debunk and tear down the false teachings and understanding of this gift that has been given to man. I want to cast the ring of bad “prayerology” (My new word I think) into the fiery depths of Mt. Mordor. Won’t you journey with me?

Movement 1:

Humanity in the Heavens

It absolutely eats me up to hear anyone say that “I am not a good prayer.” This is a lie from the Devil. And by repeating it you are building a Prayerology of lies in your soul. Words carry weight…David speaks to His soul and says “Why are you downcast Oh my soul…” He encourages himself. Now don’t get me wrong I know what you mean, but the truth is that you probably aren’t a bad prayer but you’re probably not much of a prayer at all and that’s not entirely your fault. The subject is highly neglected and deeply undervalued. If you want to be a good prayer in public you must be a good prayer at home.

I hear people when they speak of accountability talking about asking each other if your prayer times are fruitful. I can understand this saying but, this is not at all the way I could ever be measured. First of all prayer is communion with God which means that we don’t determine the outcome. I can’t make Our prayer time fruitful. Seasons of prayer come and go, for example I have been in a rather different season for the past few years that is not at all like any other season I have experienced, not to say it’s deeper and richer but is it for sure different. But what I can control is how much time I spend in communion. From the very first month of being devoted to God I began to keep a timer/alarm clock going to remind me when the time I had gladly devoted to God would be up. I start to pray and all I know is that when the timer goes off I probably have to get ready for work. This method really helps to keep your mind from worrying about what’s going on around you (and obviously finding a time and a place that is extremely quite helps).

Almost every time I begin to pray I close my eyes…. and I start to wrestle with my thoughts. This can be seen as from the devil or this can be something that discourages us from even believing there is an otherness in prayer for us.   Let me just speak with authority here. This is a mandatory aspect of prayer where we transition from our humanity to the heavenlies… the more that is swirling in your mind the more it is obvious that prayer is the best place to be. You see God wants to be Lord of everything in your life… If you are concerned with it, guess what, He is very concerned with it. He needs you to get everything off of your mind that He has laid on it so that you could enter into the “things” of the spirit. You have to develop a patience… you have to wait on the Lord and before you know it when you are completely honest before God about what’s going on in you world He comes and brings His world and walks with you in union.

I use to often beat myself up for falling asleep in prayer. I doubt you have ever been there, but just in case, I want to add that I have discovered that this is not necessarily a bad thing. As we walk in a fallen world that tears away at our hearts and minds it is only right to fall asleep in the presence of the Creator. It is the recognition of His holy presence. I’m not saying sleeping is praying I’m saying that don’t beat yourself up if you fall asleep on occasion. And maybe if you find it hard in the morning to connect without falling asleep stand up, lift your hands, walk in circles, pray out loud, read some psalms out loud… sometimes you have to wrestle for the blessing.

One last thing, when you pray go and have the conversation that God wants to have with you. He is ready to speak to you about something and you are just doing yourself and injustice not facing it. I’m sad to say that for long periods of time God doesn’t visit us because we are not really talking to Him but towards Him. He wants us to be honest, to be mad, to be faithless, but He will not take it when you don’t talk to Him. He died so we could be in unity, don’t take it for granted.

So may your humanity be saturated with the Divinity. May who you are in the world become who you are in prayer and may who you are in prayer become who you are in the world.

A Hobbit of a Man,

JG