Do You Pray With Your Eyes Closed – Even When You’re Asleep?

Romans 8:26, 27

A spirit close to God continues fellowship with Him even when one is asleep or unconscious

Soul Food

Romans 8:26,27

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

Soul Search

• How often do you talk to God?
  Are you someone who talks to God like you do a friend – conversationally – wherever you are?
  Do you sit in a chair in your living room or on your bed or driving in your car?
  Do you take a more formal approach to prayer and kneel and close your eyes and bow your head?

• Are you willing to change the way you talk to God?
  If you’re quite formal in prayer, maybe consider becoming a bit less formal and more conversational; you don’t necessarily need to bow your head or close your eyes but instead just talk to God.
  If you’re less formal in prayer, maybe you can become a bit more formal.
  It doesn’t always hurt to change things up once-in-a-while.

• Do you take the same time to listen to God as you take talking to Him?
  Do you struggle with not feeling like you’re able to hear His voice?
  As a result, do you choose to not take any time to listen?

Soul Moves

• Take time to pray in the way that is right for you.
  If you’re not praying at all during any given day, set a goal to pray for some minutes each day and make it a disciplined routine for, say, at least one or two weeks.
  After that, extend it to one month.
  Allow the amount of time that you spend in prayer to grow over time.

• Metaphorically, if you’re easily distracted by the ‘noise’ around you and it’s hard to carve out the time to pray, ask God to help you identify the best time of day to take a few minutes to pray.
  Turn off the distractions – the cell phone, the computer, the TV, the stereo, etc. – so that you can focus both in talking to God and in listening to Him.
  Talking and listening are both important parts of prayer.
  In fact, practice doing more listening to God than you do talking to Him.

• Read a passage of the Bible and ask God to speak to you about what you’ve read.
  Be prepared to be happily surprised by what you hear.