True Prayer

Greetings!

Okay so I'm completely blown away by this first meditation on prayer. I think it does a great job capturing in words the essence of true prayer. I unknowingly experienced "true prayer" this week, and the meditation allowed me to put it in words.

I'm currently on day 23 of a 40 day mind, body, and soul fast. After getting back to campus on Monday, things were going great. On Tuesday I fasted, and I wanted a little more of a push, so after talking things over with God, we decided that I could fast on Wednesday too. I distinctively remember getting up Wednesday morning and debating if I even wanted to consider fasting another day. I knew for a fact that I could complete a one day fast but two days? I knew it would be a push. As I was on my way to church and I said "God, I dont know if I can do this, but Im going to try." And He calmly and firmly responded "I am your strength, when you have none left."

With that I went to my classes and I went back to church at noon to pray.When I got there I was shaky and without words. I just didn't know what to say to God. (The uneasiness was from a lack of trust on my part. I didn't completely believe that He would be my strength, although He said He would) For a long time I just kneeled at the altar, I needed to quiet my mind.

As my mind came to a silence, I left the altar and sat in a pew. I still had no words, but atleast my mind wasn't talking. So I just sat there, and something told me not to leave because whatever it was God had planned hadn't been done yet. Slowly I began praising Him.

In that moment of praise, I felt Christ's very presence come over me, I could literally feel Him tugging at my heart. At that point, my "prayer was bearing witness to the greatness, sovereignity, wildness and the mystery of Christ invading my world." Now reflecting on the moment, this happened when I had no prayer techniques whatsoever.

To make the long story short, I ended up in complete surrenderance, my eyes were flooded with tears, as my lips barely muttered "thank you Jesus". Steph Fry's words put it best, "so often my desire to not meet God in prayer is in order to "evade" what God may have for me, fearing the unknown only to pray and connect with God and get disarmed of that fear."
By the end of the day, I had successfully completed 2 full days of fasting! Apart from Him, I can do nothing!

For a long time I thought that He was an observation for me to comprehend, little do I know He is the Revelation of grace that fully comprehends me!

Jessica James