Pray?

The whole guilt thing about 'daily prayer' and 'daily quiet time', is an unnecessary burden too many of God's children carry. God fathered (freed) my out of that burden and guilt 3 years ago when he spoke to me that 'prayer' is not just the time you kneel next to your bed with your hands folded, eyes shut, and head bowed, it is a realization that He is present every moment of my life and He simply desires to talk with me, like friends on a park bench, or across the dinner table, or even on the bar stool next to me at the pub...It has truly disarmed satan's lies, like "Why bother? You haven't done it in weeks. What's the point? You'll never be a good Christian."

We are all trained by modern day religious institutions to set aside a time and place to have our "Quiet Time". If we are to be good Christians, that has to be something we do every day (along with the other thousands of rules and principals we need to obey and do, mind you). We are taught to do that, as if it is something separate from daily life. As if it is not part of life, like we have to step out of our daily life to do it. That if I was not able to check it off my daily task list I wasn't being a good Christian.

I used to think all the time about what I was going to pray when I had my time, and all the time I would be distracted just enough to never get around to that time. Days and weeks would go by before I would be ridden with guilt and finally kneel next to my bed, bow my head, close my eyes, and rattle off a bunch of apologies, requests, praises to some distant being. Then I found freedom from that ritual, God showed me that He simply desires to talk with me, like friends on a park bench, or across the dinner table, or even on the bar stool next to me at the pub. Now I pray all the time; in the shower, driving to work, while I wait for that server to reboot, on the john. I do not think about what to pray when I get around to doing it, I just pray, talk to that Father, right there in that moment, having a conversation with my Father. That is Prayer, that is Freedom, that is Life.

Rocco