“In prayer more is accomplished by listening than by talking. Let us leave to God the decisions as to what shall be said.”
St Francis de Sales
Do you struggle in prayer? Struggle to quiet your mind to the outside world, all the things you need to accomplish for the day, all that is worrying you? Do you do all the talking and less listening?
I remember my first meeting with my spiritual director. I was so distraught that my prayer life had changed. Suddenly, my thoughts were filled with “clutter,” as I graciously put it. I wasn’t hearing God as I had before. I wasn’t really feeling His presence because I didn’t feel I could get past the clutter in my head. I also remember her response, “perhaps the clutter is the prayer and God wants you to bring that to Him.”
I struggle a lot in prayer. I do a lot of talking and tend to control my prayer time. Perhaps, what my spiritual director was wanting me to notice was that I needed to allow God to make that decision on what needed to be said in my prayer.
Maybe even the way we pray each day should be a decision we allow God to make. There are so many different ways we can pray and absorb God’s intentions for that time. These experiences involve, praying with scripture using processes such as Lectio Divina, contemplation, meditation, taking a walk with God in nature, or simply just sitting in silence.
The best prayer experiences I have are those where I just let my heart speak silently and I sit in God’s presence listening. Most often these moments are when I’m outdoors in the peaceful quiet of nature. This is my prayer space when I connect with God, where I can listen and soak in all He wants to speak to me, teaching me lessons about my life and my circumstances.
During this season of Lent, the rain and snow in our lives will water the seeds He planted through our prayer experiences bringing forth new birth, growth, and change. When we take that moment to just listen, He will answer and deliver us from our worries (Psalm 34).
Today, I invite you to try a new prayer experience to connect deeper with God, allowing Him to choose what will be said.
“If you want to see the face of Christ, stop and collect your thoughts in silence, close the door of your soul to the noise of external things.”
St Anthony of Padua
Women Who Walk By Faith 
Lots of clutter in my prayer life right now. 🙏🏻❤️
Sent from my iPhone
LikeLike
Hi Mary! I think my lesson I learned is surrendering my control of my prayer time. When I’m thinking of doing my laundry, that I try to push aside but a lot of the other stuff I think God does invite us to bring that into prayer. Never know what we find buried in that clutter that He really wants us to focus our attention on with Him.
LikeLike