Prayer Streaming – #7

Prayer Streaming – The Clean Heart

In this chapter McHenry examines the life of Teresa of Avila. Teresa’s greatest revelation was the revelation of how her sin seperated her from God and prevented the unbroken dialogue she longed for.

When I read this I kind of snorted out loud, because the quote was, “On one side, God was calling me; on the other, I was following the world.” That struck me as funny because she was living in a convent in the 1500’s. I didn’t think that the “world” there and then had any comparison on the “world” today. But what I discovered is that Teresa wrote about how she did all the prayers and worship leading at the convent, for the praise of others. That she often posed as praying, but would actually just be counting the moments for prayer time to end.

Ah, conviction. Do we do what we do in a religious context to look good to others? A form of godliness (2 Tim. 3:5) where Jesus said, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 6:1.

So how do I ponder this in prayer? McHenry writes it this way: “praying is the awareness that God sees us. He sees our willing hearts, certainly, but He also sees the shadows over them that inhibit the intimate realtionship we say we want.”

Here are some questions to take with you to prayer and allow the LORD to help you see the answers:

What keeps me from God’s presence?
What problems distract me?
What emotions or personal struggles bog me down from feeling close to God?
Is there a root weakness that causes these to rise and trip me up as I try to pray?
Do I struggle with anger, fear, worry, jealousy, bitterness, insecurity, lust, self-centeredness …or something else?

If the God we are listening to loves us so much, will He not tenderly reveal and work with us to remove everything that hinders love?