A New Season for Praying

When I was a boy on the threshold of becoming a man, I started following Jesus.  While there had been many start-ups in earlier years complete with trips to the altar and a lot of determination, somehow it never really stuck until I was ready to march up on the stage and get my high school diploma.  I remember my praying back in those beginning days.  It was mostly done at night before I made the trip to the land of dreams and as I recall it was often done on bended knee at my bedside.  It never really occurred to me that there might be other times for praying.  Once a day seemed like plenty back then.    

Over the years of moving forward into the future God was planning, the way I prayed began to change.  It became a common thing to pray not once, but often during the day.  Sometimes it was structured, but more often, it was not.  Praying seemed like the front door to a strong spiritual life and it was one through which I wanted to walk.  Something more always seemed to be on the doorpost ahead of me.   

And now as I live in this season of my life which I at one time thought of as the final season, I am learning to pray much like old Father Lawrence who experienced God's presence midst the pots and pans of the kitchen.  In this unfolding season of life, I am grateful for a growing awareness that there is no place I can move in this creation in which I am immersed where the Spirit of God cannot be experienced.  There is always the possibility of holy revelation.  And with that awareness the praying which was once so structured has become more like the prayer that is only a breath away.