Come Messy

 Come Messy!

Come overwhelmed with Life.

Come with a wandering mind.

Come depressed.

Come cynical.

 Come too busy to pray.

Now God has something to work with-

when we are out of control.

When we have failed in our attempts

 to hold it all together.

When problems stack up in this noisy world.

and we dart out a plea for help.

But, how are we suppose to hear God's voice?

Learning to pray doesn't offer you a less busy life,

it offers you a less busy heart.

Prayer is about your relationship 

with your heavenly Father, 

and He loves to see change.

Still not sure what that means?

That's ok.

Jesus meets you RIGHT THERE.

Prayer is about being needy and a cry for grace.

Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer.

Doorways into prayer can use all sorts of entry themes:

anxiety, helplessness, relationship, 

repentance, asking, story, and hope.

We don't need more self-discipline
 to pray continuously,

we just need to be poor in spirit.

Poverty of spirit makes room for His Spirit.

Approaching the Father simply as Abba,
 allows us to come child-like,
 to learn to play again.

And so we begin.

To pray in the chaos.

to watch God's drama of our lives unfold.

To trust again.

To give thanks in all things.

Because the praying life is 
interconnected with all of life.

And it is the journey of a lifetime.

I found this introduction 
to a prayer retreat this week. 
From almost 10 years ago.
Still seems pretty relevant today.
Come messy.