Growing Up | Prayer Was Too Much Effort
The growing-up days were all about playing and having fun. But Mom used to ask me to pray all the while. My elder sister was different. She used to play and also pray. I used to find that strange. How could she be taking time out from the fun times to pray?
Prayer to me was an arduous task and one that was devoid of fun. There were too many rules, and it had to be done only because Mom insisted. Even then, when Mom did not bother to ask, I did not bother to pray. Even my sister would ask me to pray. I was least interested. I just didn’t like it.
Prayer was about a process to be finished rather than a Father to be spoken to. Sadly enough, I saw prayer as nothing different than school homework. It had to be done otherwise, there would be punishment. I used to do both prayer and homework, but did not enjoy either. This is where I went wrong in building a relationship with my Heavenly Father. It would take me many more years to realize how silly I was and what a relationship I passed in my younger days.
The good news is, I am still here and have been given another opportunity by my Father to make amends and straighten my path. But the opportunity did not come by until I realized that I needed it.
The Shaky Life | The Depressed Life
A lack of relationship with the Father took its toll. Prayer was the last thing on my mind. It was something to be done when every other aspect of life was taken care of. In other words, something to do for fifteen seconds before going to sleep. I was so bad with God that I didn’t even keep a promise that I made to Him as a kid. I had covered that in the previous article, and those interested can read it here:
The one true aspect of distancing from God that I didn’t realize is that I was growing closer to the ungodly. Unlike God, where we have a choice to be with Him, there is no such choice with the ungodly. The ungodly will take every available opportunity to hijack and ruin our lives. There is no invitation required. And yet I gave the best invitation to it by keeping God away from me. The ungodly, demon, devil, evil spirit, or whatever you call it, had a field day in my life. Depression was one of the last of the debilitating outcomes. I call it last since the devil does not stop at depression. I had suicidal thoughts. That’s how it would have been victorious. But then God saved me.
Despite not deserving it, God touched my life. He did use my wife, my friends, and my therapist to reach me, but His Hands were unmistakable. How could I have known Jesus and yet choose to distance myself from Him? God’s Grace that was ever shining in my life, despite my disinterest in Him, how could I have been blind to it?
Prayer felt like a cry for help for the first time. I could sense that prayer was me calling out to the Creator of the Universe. I was desperate. If I had had the right perspective about God earlier in life, my life would have been such a beautiful time. I lost that time. However, I am glad that I am able to see God’s presence in my life now.
But the experience without God and with God is extremely different. I intend to share it here.
Talking to God | Peace, Acceptance, and Intelligence Follows
While many would understand peace and acceptance of oneself, it would be a bit odd that I also put intelligence in the mix. That’s because the Bible says so:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom – Proverbs 9:10
I have grown to understand this a lot better now. I used to ask myself early on in my life why I should fear God. Shouldn’t I be loving God? True, love God but also fear Him. We loved our parents and yet feared them as kids, didn’t we? Didn’t that make us good kids? Then how is this any different?
Anyway, I was talking about my experience. What changed? Here’s what’s happened. I am on my business journey, and over the last two years, the visible difference is how I am approaching the same business. Nothing has changed. Same parameters, same challenges, same work to be done, and same output expectations.
Let me clarify how things were for the most part of my business while I was away from God. It was driven with anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, doubts about myself, debilitating mental attacks on my work, extreme pessimism, lack of interest in getting started, procrastination, and not achieving the result I had set out to achieve.
With God, the picture was different. Remember, nothing had changed when I embraced God Almighty, Jesus my Savior, and the Holy Spirit. But the perspective did change. There was a new energy to look at my business, ideas that seemed to come out of nowhere, joy in my work, peace and a relaxed mind, sharp focus, believing that I can succeed, opportunities in the same work environment (wonder where they were hiding before), immense optimism, and an assured feeling of victory.
As I said, nothing physically had changed, but my mental faculty is running at light speed. I am loving it. This is what God’s grace in my life looked like. Now tell me, why wouldn’t I want more of this? More importantly, why didn’t I listen to my Mom as a kid? 😊
It’s good that I am back on track, and all thanks to God. I recommend that all of you’ll should taste and see that the LORD is good. You will love it just like me!!
Image Courtesy: Running Away from God | Image Created using Grok