Demolishing Concepts of Prayer

September 23-25th we took our students on a fall retreat to a camp near the mountains and joined students from NC State, ECU, and UNC Chapel Hill. The theme for the weekend was Worship in Unexpected Places. Our speaker, Neal Alligood, a former campus minister at NC State, shared about worshiping God at different moments in our lives.

During the retreat, I also led a breakout session that students could choose to come to, and shared some thoughts on prayer. Over the past 3 years, I've been really passionate about speaking on, teaching on and leading prayer ministry. For the first half of the workshop, I set about to in some ways demolish how the students viewed prayer. Instead of focusing on what they're praying about, I encouraged them to focus on who they're praying to. We looked at passages of scripture where ordinary men encountered God and they're reaction was fear and awe.

I also asked students "What would their prayer lives look like if they didn't ask God for anything?" For many, they said they wouldn't have a reason to pray. I defined prayer for students as "realizing that we are in the presence of God." Because God is always with us, but we aren't aware of it. How we respond once we're aware I believe is prayer, whether its worship, praising Him, thanking Him, listening to Him, pouring out our hearts to Him, etc.

Don't you want to have a richer prayer time with God? A time where you're eager to pray and might even go for hours on end? Seek to discover more of who God is, and seek to spend as much time with Him as you can, without treating Him like a vending machine and going to him when you want something.