Posted on Jul 30, 2019 in
LIVING THE SWEET LIFE
By Alisa Murray
www.AlisaMurray.com
Nationally recognized
portrait artist and
award-winning columnist.
That was a question that I asked myself recently. By “Him” I mean God, of course, and my reasons were many. Most of us who are Christians are trained and taught to pray and for the most part, we do exactly that. Prayers are a part of our way of asking for forgiveness when we know we have done something wrong and for rejoicing and being grateful for when we have received something or accomplished something that is felt to be right.
I have always prayed, and I attribute that practice to having been raised in a home where if you were too sick to go to church, then you would be spending the rest of Sunday sick, too, making it a seldom Sunday to miss hearing the preacher. We pray at meals and teach our children to say thanks for their “daily bread” and to ask for those less fortunate. We pray at night to have our souls “taken” if we were to die in our sleep and to be watched over at all times. When we say these prayers, we do it as part of a ritual and routine and although important, is it really meaningful to us? I would argue as a parent it’s imperative to train through routines the acts of daily prayer, and as adults, we must actually move onto a real conversation with our Lord.
Conversations are harder and ask us to dig deeper into our faiths with a goal of helping us determine what we should be doing. Harder still is to be ready to hear the answers and act once given instructions by the Holy Spirit. Our relationship with God is the easiest and yet the hardest because what we might discover in our conversations sometimes scares us, making it all too easy to follow along and say that, “Now I lay me down to sleep” or “God is great, God is good” ritualistic prayer. Harder still is to carve out the time for the relationship with Him, as we all live pretty busy lives. And, sticking to our routines – yes even those deeply rooted in us from childhood – is much easier to maintain than to actually step out of the box and start asking some hard questions, really deeply checking in with our Maker.
In all the years that I have captured people, the ones who were dying were the closest to having a real authentic relationship with God. Having been tasked with the reality of an early passing does indeed change one’s daily perspective. For those of us who are living life without such eminent ending, it would do us all good to know that our ends are coming, too. We tend to forget that and move through life in a ritual and routine. When was the last time that you asked God a question? Like, why am I here right now, and what is my purpose? Like, where do You want me to go next? Like, why am I still doing ‘A’ when what I think I should be doing is ‘B’? Asking Him in a real conversation means being willing to hear the answer, and my friends, He always answers. That could mean getting news that we don’t really want to hear. It might mean we need to make a huge change or it could be an inconvenient truth. And, of course, it could be a pat on the back from an old wise place that we are doing precisely what we are supposed to be doing! In all cases, don’t be afraid to have that conversation. Drop Him a line and have the relationship that you were meant to have with Him.
Take Care of YOU!
What questions would you like to ask God? As a part of my Sweet Life stories, I am collecting from my readers their questions. Drop me a line at alisa@absolutelyfocusmedia.com.
