My daughter, Tabitha, began telling me this one day that they were thinking about giving away their dog Ruby.  I asked her how she felt about this and she told me she was, "Very sad."  I asked her if she had a chance to pray about it yet and she told me no.  I told her that I would pray for her to get an answer, and that she was to pray also, but before she did she had to be willing to receive an answer from God saying she had to get rid of Ruby, her heart had to prepare for this or otherwise she will not hear God's answer and will only be looking for the answer she wanted, to keep Ruby.  I told her we never know Gods intensions, we do not know if Ruby must go and possibly protect a child's life somewhere else.  With this she got a smirk on her face, her heart understood what I was talking about. 

The following week I picked her up and she started telling me about Ruby being hit by a car, but not bad enough to hurt her.  I asked her if she had prayed and asked God for an answer, and she told me that she did.  I looked over at her and smiled and said, “I see that God answered your prayer.”  Tab turned to me and said, “What do you mean dad?”  I looked at her and said, “Ruby almost got run over by a car and you, your mom and your other dad, had a chance to see what life would be like without Ruby and none of you liked it did you?”  Tab smiled at me and said, “Yeah, mom even said that we are going to keep her now and I am making sure that I take time with her and take her for walks.”  I looked at her and asked her if she now sees how God answers our prayers?  With a big grin on her face she looked at me and said, "Yeah."  My daughter had the real opportunity to find out for herself how we are to pray, and how these prayers are answered.  Our prayers are not usually answered with miracles, but what is miraculous is how we receive them.

PRAYER/MEDITATION 

Prayer holds great power for a person of faithful devotion to God.  Through prayer or meditation one can become truly aware of the presence of God in their life, and the Spirit within themselves.  When one sits silently and in deep prayer/meditation, the Spirit of God is easiest to attain because we are more available to listen.

 Prayer is not just the speaking of words to our Creator or a memorized series of words we have learned.  It is the actual dialogue, the communication between our maker and ourselves.  Our mind, our thoughts are never still.  These thoughts are always racing through our mind and the mind never stops, not even in rest.  The objective with prayer/meditation is to slow down the mind, to stop the internal chaos and become centered and focused on one thought.  This chaos, also called “Monkey Mind” is the rapid movement of thoughts from one thought to another in rapid succession literally jumping from thought to thought. 

Who has not been in an assembly of people involving themselves in some prayer time to soon find their thoughts drifting away into other thoughts?  In true personal prayer it is harnessing these thoughts into one thought without it drifting.  This is impossible to do for anyone who is not well trained through years of practice to accomplish this at a Mall, Football game, or places where chaos is going on around us because of the distractions, which will soon enter into our mind.  When we find a place of solitude and learn to stop this process, we can become focused on the spirit alone within us.   Even for the well-trained individual, a master, these thoughts can be harnessed much easier in a place that is quiet and peaceful.  It is here where we can begin to connect with the Spirit of God for guidance and we are better able to listen for them and to them.