Have you ever prayed with your eyes open?
Have you ever been praying and opened your eyes, then look at someone else and instantly close your eyes.
This past month I have been going through a devotional called Praying with your eyes wide open. It has been pretty awesome to watch what the Lord does while someone is praying.
It never mentions in scripture that we are supposed to fold our hands, bow our heads and close our eyes to pray. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray with out ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
All that Jesus wants while we pray is to be in relationship with Him.
Prayer, in its simplest form, is about being in the presence of the God who made us and loves us. It is about relationship. When we learn to pray with our eyes wide open, we will discover in new and greater ways that we are not alone. We sense more deeply and intimately that God is with us in the depths of pain, depression, sadness, and fear. He is also with us at the height of excitement, joy and delight.
At first the idea of praying with my eyes wide open was weird to me but then I started to practice doing that and my mind set started to shift. Think about it, we want prayer to be a natural part of life and sometimes we can’t close our eyes to pray.
Ever pray while you are driving your car on the way to work? Yeah, can’t exactly close your eyes while driving. For me this month in Jinka, Ethiopia we are walking pretty much everywhere. I can’t not look at the ground while walking let alone close my eyes; there are always people around us and pot holes everywhere.
There have been a lot of cool experiences I have had while praying with my eyes open the last week. But one in particular was when my team and I were heading to a children’s center called OMO to go visit and see if we could get involved this month. While on the way there we were followed by about 20-30 kids just wanting to talk and walk with us wherever we were going. That is our normal, our team draws a crowd wherever we go.
Right before we were about to walk into OMO, our team stopped and just checked in with each other to make sure we were in a good mind set to go in ministry. We stopped and prayed together as a team and yet again, as we are praying my eyes are wide open. I see the most beautiful sight, all of the kids surrounding us were praying right alongside us. In the middle of our prayer one other kid came over and started talking to the kids around and another kids tapped him and told him “shhh”, then proceeded to fold his hands and pray alongside us.
I want to encourage you try praying with your eyes wide open, see what the Lord show you. It can change the way you pray. You can talk to Him about what you are seeing around you, the people, and maybe just maybe He will show you what He wants to talk to him about.
Holy Spirit is always working while we are praying and it can be super cool to see what He is doing around you.
