Tag Archives: Praying

Thursday Thanks (51-55)

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fiveEach week (I aim for Thursday), I’ll use this space to list five things (items, experiences, people, whatever) for which I’ve been recently grateful. Consider it my “blessings count”. Ann Voskamp’s famous challenge to list 1000 gifts seemed daunting — I’m committing to 500, a task which will take me two years of weekly posts to complete!

Despite disruption to last week’s post, I was still grateful! Here, I’ll prove it to you…

1) Small Voices
Our two-year old loves to sing. Every night before bed, we read a book filled with the lyrics to “You are My Sunshine”. I lead and leave out words for her to fill — and some of those fills are the cutest sounds human ears have ever heard.

2) Thunder
Our city had a lot of rain this week, and even some thunder. Even some morning thunder! What is it about those sky-shaking acoustics? I don’t know exactly, but I love it.

3) Execution
Though that word may bring to mind the death penalty in Texas, this is actually a statement about basketball in Texas. In the NBA Finals, the San Antonio Spurs took a Miami Heat team loaded with talent and then destroyed them. If you wanted to see how basketball is supposed to be played, the clinic was aired on TV for the world to learn. It’s fun watching perfection!

4) Praying Friends
I sent a text to several friends last week, asking for specific prayers. Many responded quickly that they were on it. That makes me grateful.

5) Rockin’ Robin
Our five-year-old had her preschool concert this week. The whole program was about birds — trivia, jokes, poems. But no doubt, the highlight was a choreographed performance to Rockin’ Robin. My wife could hardly breathe, she was getting such delight from the show! And I was grateful for both a dancing daughter and a weeping wife. 🙂

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  • Did any of this week’s list especially strike a chord with you?
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How Children Pray

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photoI was awakened early this morning by our one-year-old (first face in the photo to the right) calling my name, “Dada! Dada!” I entered her room and rocked her back to sleep, taking the wake-up call as my cue to head downstairs to begin some quiet in Scripture and prayer.

I read my scheduled passage, from the book of Numbers, and began stumbling into prayer. Again, our little one cried out my name from her crib, “Dada! Dada!” As I rocked her again, I pondered the barely-veiled prayer teaching within her morning cries.

And I longed for such simplicity in my prayer life.

How easily I make things difficult. How sharp are my skills to dull communication with the Father! Why is it so hard to merely call His name “like I mean it”, then to nuzzle in and draw from Him all the love, warmth, peace, and security that I need?

Far too often, my Bible serves as a barrier to deep prayer. I know the obvious truth that it need not be this way, but my weak mind is quickly pulled into the analyzing of text and the idolizing of ideas at the outrageous cost of intimate interaction with the One who is both revealed in Scripture and far too large for any leather-bound book.

There is something to be said for simply shouting, “Dada! Dada!”

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  • What prayer barriers have your experienced or overcome?
  • How would you suggest that prayer can be simplified for the better?

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