I believe in part due to the ideas planted in me by reading 'Blue Like Jazz', I have had a revelation tonight. The last few days I've been very lazy, waking up late and not getting much done. I haven't been praying or reading my Bible. I've begun to effectively fight the brutal guilt I used to feel when missing those good spiritual things for even a solitary day (and that solitary day has come quite frequently), which I'm still undecided about as to whether it's a good thing or not. God doesn't want us to feel guilty all the time, but at the same time, praying and Bible reading is important.
Anyways, back on point, I knelt down to pray tonight, and realized how brutally systematic my praying life was. I knew I would start off with praise, drift off, then catch myself drifting off before I switch to continually thinking God to change it up a bit. After that, I progress to praying for my cousin Jacob, then for my Dad. I'd say the prayer of Jabez, thank God for today and pray for tomorrow. After that I would wrap up and go to bed. What is the point? A friend wouldn't want a friend to talk to them because they felt guilty about not; just saying a few random things because it's the right thing to do for their friendship. That's crap, and God doesn't want crap. He wants us, all of us and not a script.
I'm not going to pray tonight because I know how it would come out. I'm feeling in no position to spew out some words to the creator of the universe tonight. I will do it tomorrow, and do it in such a way and maybe in such a place that I know I'm being real, being myself, and actually connecting with God.
One more thing that's an extension from this revelation is if I ever find myself leading a Bible study (which I'm sure I will at some point), I don't ever want to do it like it's always been done, at least in our modern era anyways. People sitting around a comfortable living room talking with friends and eating corn chips. It somehow makes it hard to really appreciate what's going on in God's Word; it makes it hard to connect and really hear from God, which of course is the purpose of a Bible study, besides of course studying the Bible (which is honestly deadly boring sometimes when God's not part of it). I want to lead a Bible study where we get away from all the comforts of every kind, like for example only ever meet somewhere remote where stars are the only lights (except for maybe flashlights so seeing the words in the Bible is possible) and the couch is a big old semi-damp log. Reading the Bible, we read about things so far away, so long ago that making it relevant in the least so you can take any of it in is extremely hard and something all the Bible professinoals work at fixing I'm sure 24/7. Well only through God can we ever truly understand and get anything out of His word in the least, so technically if someone actually becomes truly, actually interested in reading the Bible, it's actually a miracle. This isn't the only way by any means, and not necessarily the best way at all, but perhaps it might be helpful if we want God to be able to take us out of our comfort zones to actually really learn something and find Him, maybe we should ourselves actually remove ourselves from our comfort zones. Afterall, where did Jesus go before He began His ministry? Where did He go to connect with the Father and grow under the incredibly uncomfortable and brutal temptations of Satan? To the desert of course; out in the middloe of nowhere away from everything. He went away from everything, the crowds and the comforts many times through His ministry to connect with the Father. I think it's perhaps time I started getting away from the crowds and comforts too. If ever I neeeded to be truly connecting with God, well it's every single day.
