The Power of Active Listening in Prayer: Transform Your Spiritual Practice

The Power of Active Listening in Prayer: Transform Your Spiritual Practice

Prayers

For the whole of this month in our house we have been learning about prayer and from today to the weekend, we shall be holding our mid year prayers to seek God's face for the second part of the year rolling in, but as much as we talk to God, do we hear God talking back to us? perhaps we don't hear because we don't do the listening part of prayer but the talking part only, hence I want to remind us that there is a listening aspect of prayer.

Lk.18:1 ‘Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.’  

This is a command from our Lord Jesus Christ passed across by parable. After you have done your part of the bargain in prayer, you can be rest assured that God will play His. Prayer is not something new that you have not been taught before, but you can never have enough of it, because it is naturally not easy to pray; and that is why you should know that something good comes as the aftermath of prayer. You find it easier to sleep when you are praying than to sleep when you are talking to a friend, little did we know that prayer is talking to God and God talking to us in return. The problem is that we make the mistake of seeing prayer as a monologue rather than a dialogue; it is actually a dialogue. God speaks back to us each and every time we pray, yes He does, but most often than none we are too much in a hurry to leave His presence than we will when we speak to our friends or even foes (if you have one). Because we have preconditioned our minds that He will only hear but not speak in return, so we are at speed to tell Him all we need to tell Him and get out without expectation of a response. 

We cry for God to give us wisdom over an issue, but we never create a few minute away from business to see if the needed idea will drop in our mind. The Holy Spirit will always do the work of teaching us all things when we pray to know, but we are not accustom to waiting to hear Him teach or drop the ideas. Most people now live by prophecies from acclaimed Prophets, and that is how many get into problems. When you depend daily on the word of a Prophet to know what to do, you defeat the purpose of the death of Christ for you, it is for that singular course of direct access that the curtain at the temple split into two at the death of Jesus on the cross.

Listening is a major part of prayer we never take heed to; create time for that and you will always see reasons why you ought always to pray.

Prayer: Father, please teach me not just to talk at you in prayers but to listen to you in return, that I may live a complete prayer life that pleases you, Amen!