How do you deepen your relationship with God?
Need a hotline to God?
In this blog I look at how relationships with others do require time and this is the same with our relationship with God.
I will show an example of one type of prayer or conversation with God, particularly using the Lord’s prayer as a way to pray and spend time in the presence of God.
I’ve also made a recording of a prayer time in case you would welcome an example to listen to, or even join in with:
Listen to the prayer:
Do you have a close friend?
If so, how did you and your friend become close and develop a bond of trust with each other?
When you first met, maybe you didn’t know much about them. How did you learn more?
I imagine it took time being together, talking with and listening to each other. Over time your experience of one another caused an attachment and a bond to form and you like to include one another in your every day lives. When I think of my own friendships, they add a richness to my life.
How can we know God more?
It does take time and time set aside. We make time for what seems important to us. When you spend time with a friend, you book the time in your diary. You make space for them. It is the same with how we can know God more.
I am a follower of Jesus and when I look at the life of Jesus, in the new testament in the bible I see that he made time to be in the presence of his father in heaven.
When do you feel close to God?
I realise that when I spend time in stunning scenery, or looking at an amazing sunset or sunrise I can experience a sense of God and his glory displayed through the creation. As we notice something beautiful, even our expression of how we enjoy it can be a type of prayer to God. We can acknowledge God as the source of all goodness.
Another time when I feel close is when I am worshipping, it could be at home to some worship music, or in the car singing along to worship. It might be when I am with others who believe and we worship together.
Have you ever prayed and felt not sure about how to pray?
Prayer is one of those activities that is developed with experience. It is another way we are enabled to sense God’s closeness to us. We can pray with others and this can be inspiring. Listening to the prayer of another can be encouraging, particularly if you feel stuck.
One way that I have found helpful is to pray scripture.
Jesus taught his disciples how to pray in a particular pattern in the Lord’s Prayer. You can pray in many ways, not necessarily using a pattern. Jesus believed it would be helpful for his disciples to have an example of prayer.
The Lord’s prayer is sometimes taught in schools and rattled off quickly in a worship service and perhaps is best when it is slowed down and thought about.
Our Father in heaven,
As we start we can thank God that he is a perfect Father, some of us may have had Father’s who were harsh, or even abusive and so this might be a tricky way to approach God.
We likely have a view of what a perfect Father might offer a child in terms of love, protection, safety, provision, consistency in love, not a mixture of behaviours where the child does not feel safe to be and accepted for who they are.
This Father is creator of everything both on earth and heaven. As part of deepening our relationship we can say aloud to God that we are thankful that he loves us so much that he sent Jesus so we can come into his presence.
Hallowed be your name,
In the throne room of heaven night and day the living beings around the throne never stop saying Holy, Holy Holy is the Lord God, the almighty, the one who always was, who is and who is still to come (Revelation 4:8)
When we say holy is the Lord, we are joining in with the worship that is ongoing in heaven. As we declare God as almighty and holy, it can bring fresh perspective.
We come before one who is able to do more than we ask or imagine.
Ephesians 3:20.
Psalm 95 speaks of entering the presence of God with praise and thanksgiving. Verse 4 tells us how:
‘Come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care’.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Jesus encourages us to ask God for his kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth in the same way it is happening in heaven. God has given us the greatest command which is to love him with all our soul, heart, mind and strength and the second like it to love our neighbour as ourselves.
This is one way our world would be totally different, if humans were to truly love God and love one another. The fact this is included in how to pray tells us that even though God is in ultimate control, his will is not being done on earth. He chooses those he has created to join him in bringing his kingdom rule. Part of this is looking to God to bring his kingdom and his will to earth.
Give us today our daily bread.
Jesus is described as the bread of life. I believe this prayer encourages us to look to God for provision not only for our physical needs but also for our spiritual needs. We need God’s help to love him with all our heart, or to love him even in our weak way. Even our weak love moves the heart of God towards us.
We need God’s help to love those we don’t see eye to eye with.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
When we admit our faults and the things we have neglected to do aswell as those things we are maybe upset that we have done it helps us to remember that we are in need of forgiveness. It can be easier to spot the errors of others at times, knowing we too make mistakes and need to be forgiven can help keep a perspective of love, particularly if someone has hurt us in some way.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
Jesus is aware that on earth there are things that tempt us away from God’s presence and that there is a spiritual realm where we have an enemy of our souls. This enemy is preoccupied with bringing division between humans and especially between God and humans. This enemy uses deception. We can ask for wisdom to stay away from any evil, this can include wrong beliefs about who God is.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen.
Worship is a way to deepen our relationship with God and in worship we can receive revelation about who God is. In this example of prayer, we are encouraged to think about how the power, glory and the kingdom belong to God. When we focus on the power and glory of God, rather than whatever issue we may be facing we gain a new perspective. We remember the greatness and faithfulness of God. We choose to praise God and when we do so this is powerful in the spiritual realm. We also read in the earlier psalm that praise is another way to enter the tangible presence of God.
In this blog I’ve talked about how we can get to know God more through prayer and compared how we might get to know God better with how we deepen our relationship with a close friend.
There are also other scriptures that can be used, the psalms are prayers written by believers and some of these like Psalm 23 or Psalm 27 can be useful as a pattern too. In future I might record an example of one of these to add here.
How about you?
Do you feel inspired to pray using the Lord’s prayer as a pattern?
I hope you’ve found this useful. If you would like a safe space where you can reflect on what you might like to be different with your relationship with God, contact me for a spiritual well being session.
If you would like to work with me, please get in touch