Tag: prayer

  • Talking to God

    “Hello God, are you there? It’s me Margaret again..” that’s how I feel sometimes when I pray. The only difference is that instead of being a 12 year old girl asking for boobs, I’m a 52 year old man asking for wisdom and a little self-restraint in a diet that will hopefully (God willing?!?!) magically make my love handles disappear. My prayers are not always so petty. The other day after studying in Exodus and learning about Jehovah Rapha (The LORD who Heals), I prayed that He heal my achilles tendon that has been really bothering me lately. In case you are wondering, it’s still bugging me (oh, and my love handles are bigger than ever). Maybe I should pray to not be a little b*%@ (someone pray for my potty mouth).

    The Bible says a lot about prayer:

    The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

    Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Phillipians 4:6)

    But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father…(Matthew 6:6)

    pray continually. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

    The Bible’s critics say even more. I was reading a book recently where the author had terminal cancer. He was an atheist and he, (like I did as an agnostic), would get upset when people mentioned that they would pray for him. His thought was why are you wasting time to pray to a God who let this happen to begin with?

    I know that prayer has worked in my life. I also know I could do a much better job of talking to God. I try to make sure I sincerely pray when I say I’m going to pray for someone, but I’m sure I’ve added to the millions of good intentions that are offered without action. I know that I’ve offered many prayers with no real belief or faith that they’ll make a difference. I’ve also offered many, many prayers of gratitude for blessings in my life (see, I’m not always a whiny B).

    There is alway the concern about how to pray. What if I mess up my thee’s and thou’s? The good news is God understands us even when we were are so hurt or frustrated that we aren’t making sense or even don’t know what in the heck to pray for (we do not know what to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us–Romans 8:26), I heard recently that God doesn’t always answer our prayers because he knows that as soon as our prayers are answered, we’ll stop talking to him. He wants the relationship with us and a one-sided relationship isn’t a good one. Heck sometimes I’ve got to do a reality check on my prayers. This blog is a perfect example… am I really praying that HE will somehow be glorified through it, or my own ego will be satisified. Probably true, but I don’t have all the answers…so I’ll continue to pray. “Dear God, it’s me Margaret AGAIN, about these moobs you gave me…”

  • The mind reader

    All of a sudden, I could read minds. I was just minding my own business trying to do some grocery shopping, when I could literally hear what people were thinking. The problem was the thoughts were coming at me fast and furious, and I couldn’t tell who was thinking what. I saw something like this on a movie one time, but that guy was getting thoughts like, “hey handsome!” I couldn’t even understand what language my thoughts were in. “Wait a minute,” I realized I wasn’t reading people’s minds, I had bionic hearing. I could hear all the way to China! I could hear EVERYTHING. I scanned the faces of the people walking towards me and none of them were making the sounds that I was hearing. It was crazy! Then I looked back, and about five feet behind me I saw (and definitely heard) a short, elderly, and very loud, Asian woman.

    That’s when I decided to officially embrace my geezerdom. Sure at first, I rejected the idea of ever wearing hearing aids, but I’ve come around. They were never mainstream and acceptable like eyeglasses and toupees, but with advances in technology, they have become dare I say hip (well as hip as the word “hip” is anyway)?

    Quick sidenote for a Lifehack: if you also want to become hip, go to Costco where you can get a pair of hearing aids for under $1500 bucks (vs. your not so friendly Ear Nose and Throat doctor’s office who will gladly charge you $6k per ear). Anyway, for probably the first time in my life I could hear people who were even behind me, so I was sold.

    Being able to hear is nice, but the fact that my hearing aids are blue tooth enabled was the real kicker. Not only could I answer my phone calls directly to my hearing aids, but I could also watch videos, listen to podcasts, and get lost in social media without anyone even knowing. Except my wife, she ALWAYS knows.

    She would be there chatting away and pouring her heart out to her loving husband… who was secretly watching and listening to the latest viral trend on TikTok. She would want to talk to me, but I would be distracted by something else. Eventually, she would just wait and stop talking for if/when I stopped being distracted and actually listened to her. And for some crazy reason, these one sided conversations with me always being distracted, wasn’t good for our relationship.

    And so it goes with God. Even though I learned my hearing aid lesson after my wife beat it into me, I still can’t go five minutes in silence. TikTok, podcast, Audible, Spotify, sports, Netflix, cat video, ESPN, Facebook, background noise, something, ANYTHING… in my ears or in front of my eyes… and at all times. Never silence.

    They say God speaks to us in a whisper. God could be shouting to me through a megaphone, but I can’t hear Him because I can’t follow His simple instructions, “Be still and know that I am God.” Have you ever heard the devil’s greatest trick is to keep us distracted. Unfortunately, I am falling for his trick: hook, line, and sinker and I know that I’m not alone. I’m going to wrap up this Sunday’s Funny so I can simply shut everything down and spend some time with God. Talking to Him and actually listening to Him. I’ll be just Psalms 46:10’ing it up over here, being still and knowing that HE is God.