We've made it to the end of our first week. If you've joined with the rest of us in this commitment to renew and deepen our prayer lives and stuck with it this week, way to go! If you've slipped up along the way, no problem. Just dust yourself off and try again. If you've not yet joined in this pursuit, there's still plenty of time left to come along on this journey into prayer. It's been a challenging and exciting ride and I'm sure there are more great things to come.
Thought I'd use the space today to pose a question to you: Does location matter? When it comes to praying, does it matter where you are when you pray? Are there right and wrong places to pray, or can you just pray anywhere/anytime? Do you find some location makes a difference in the prayers you pray? Does the Bible have anything to say about this or provide any examples for us to follow in this? This concern has come up some in my study lately. More importantly, it's been a big part of my thoughts about my own prayers this week. So, I'd love to hear some feedback from some of you guys...does the setting matter when it comes to praying?
For me personally, I pray anywhere, anytime. However, I have found that when I have something which seems so big to me, whether a heart overflowing with praise or to the depths sorrow or grief, I have to go outside. We have a hill just beyond the playground in our neighborhood and that's my destination. Rain or shine, night or day this seems appropriate somehow when what I'm experiencing is more than I think I can bear.
ReplyDeleteGreat thought! When I posted the question, I was thinking of my own inclination to distraction and perhaps considering Jesus warnings about making a show of our prayer. So, I was thinking in more of a spacial sense about a good spot to close my off from distraction and attention. Hadn't even thought about it terms of outdoors/indoors nor of finding a helpful connection with nature and being active in order to pray through difficult things. Of course, walking about to a park(garden) out on a hill(mountain) is exactly what Jesus did when he wanted to really get away and pray too. See this working on prayer together thing is so much better than just trying to do it on your own. Thanks CTL!
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