Today, my team did something called concentrated prayer.
Something I have come to really love and appreciate.
Prayer for a lot of people simply looks like speaking to God, but this is such a restricted definition.
So in this blog I want to talk about what concentrated prayer looks like for me, and how the Lord has spoken to me today.
Concentrated Prayer ( these steps are simply recommendations not instructions)
- Simply find the time and location. Somewhere you will not be interrupted, and a time where you don’t feel restricted.
- Find a comfortable position.
- Close your eyes and do NOT open them.
- Choose a word to focus on. Common words include: God, Jesus, love, sacrifice, etc.
- Focus on your breathing. Don’t change how you breathe, but just be aware of your breath.
- In the silence simply focus on your chosen word and your breathing. If your mind begins to wonder, simply focus on your word again. Try to be completely focused in the stillness and silence.
- Do this for as long as you need to.
- Be open to hearing words from God, visions, or even scripture.
- But also don’t be frustrated if you do not hear anything. Enjoy the stillness and presence of God.
Sounds super simple right? Sit, be quiet, focus on word.
IT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT IS EASY FOR ME
I struggle so much to focus. One random thought leads to another random thought and so on.
But today, that didn’t happen.
Today, I chose the word Spirit.
This month I have been learning so much about the Holy Spirit and how we are constantly in the Spirit’s presence.
You may know this already, but Spirit means “God breathed”.
So throughout our time in concentrated prayer I focused solely on my breathing. Knowing that in doing so, I was also thinking of Spirit.
I heard absolutely nothing from God during this time. I saw absolutely nothing, I felt absolutely nothing.
But I was still.
Then, a song began to play and I continued to just sit in silence. My teammates had begun to move and sing, but I stayed in my silence.
That is when I felt as if someone had physically grabbed my shoulder and just gave it the softest squeeze. It was so soft, I second guessed if I had even felt it at all. So I looked behind me and beside me, but nobody was there.
In that moment, the Lord told me that he is always with me. Even in the suck. Which I won’t vent all the details, but the past two days have been really hard and simply sucked.
God is always with us though, God doesn’t abandon us, he doesn’t make us walk through trial alone.
The hard part is we don’t always feel this way. As fleshly beings it is so easy to think he has left us. That we are alone.
That is where hope comes in. Hope even when we are completely unsure. Hope even when we aren’t hearing anything from God.
I think of John 14:2-4
“My father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am.”
My hope is found in this. There is a lot of unknown in this hope, but I think that is the beauty.
There is beauty in Peter stepping out onto the unknown of the water, blindly trusting God.
I hope to learn and continue to trust in the Lord as faithfully as Peter in that moment.
One last encouragement I have for anyone reading this is about BIG prayers.
Why are we so afraid to pray big things? Do we not truly in the heart believe God can move mountains?
This afternoon one of my best friends Amanda, who I came on this trip with, who also happens to be the most faith filled person I know, prayed an extremely big prayer over me. A prayer nobody had ever prayed for me before.
With emotion in her voice, she prayed for me to be cured of my type one diabetes.
A year ago, I honestly would have laughed in her face. My diabetes is incurable, it’s genetic, I am stuck with it forever.
But today, I believe God answers prayers. I know he sure as heck hears them.
Our God is bigger than a diagnosis, bigger than our unbelief, bigger than our doubts.
Will I be cured of my diabetes in this lifetime? I would love nothing more and totally believe God could do that.
But if not, I am also okay because I know healing doesn’t happen in our own time.
Maybe my healing is meant to happen in heaven. No more insulin doses, finger pricks, or feeling absolutely horrible.
I have full trust the Lord will answer this prayer.
So what kind of prayers are you holding on to that seem WAY TOO big to ask of God?
What are you afraid of?
The worst that can happen is nothing.
God isn’t going to laugh at you.
He isn’t going to leave you.
He will simply love you and listen to you.
With that, I encourage you to take some time in the next day to be still in silence with the Lord. Try a new way of praying. Pray big prayers. It doesn’t have to look perfect, you don’t have to learn a huge lesson. Just spend time with God. He wants to know you.
