Before you pray - 3 big thoughts

Prayer:
Feelings describe how we interpret emotions and emotions are chemical/electrical responses to our senses and memories combining with core beliefs (I see a rattlesnake and I feel anxious - loss - let's go somewhere else! A toddler might feel inquisitive, interested, happy, let's check it out feelings). Did you get all that?

Prayer includes feelings that are fed by our emotions. SO, SO, SO . . . it matters what I believe at a core level of my being. Are you ready? Of course!

Three, 3, very big things Bruce thinks are helpful to believe for prayer to be a great gift in your life:

1) A Relationship-God Exists 2) God Likes You 3) God's Really Big!

My agnostic-unitarian-I-worship-Shakespeare-Artist-
friend met me at this really cool coffee shop this week (I may even play here - he's one amazing guitarist). An Agnostic, by definition, will grant that there may be a cosmic "Big Guy" out there (Having some Super-being start everything off is more logical than trying to believe everything started from random nothingness). BUT to have prayer become the ultimate gift I need to believe in a PERSONAL God who lives and gets His (not male) kicks out of being in vibrant alive friendships with as many living creatures as possible (those who are willing and desirous of a friendship). Now prayer becomes so much more than a Freudian rubic's cube for feeling good about myself (and my Momma).

God likes you! This is it! It's what has been so hard for much of my life to believe (beneath the religious smoke we blow around when we're afraid of being judged). I find this the core of my life now - that I can know that God really likes me. This fights off and over and over wins over the self-repeating lie that I'm not OK! Friendship is life! I spent seven years reading and re-reading Psalm 139:13-14, Romans 5:6-10 and Ephesians 2:1-10. Now, for the last two years I keep camping on this verse: Eph. 1:4-5.

God's bigger than any of my other gods. I grew up believing that God was all-powerful. That meant I must be a real screw-up because when I really needed Him to come through for me, He didn't help. Seeing God as big without seeing Him as being good ALL the time is not much good. I need a God that is good, all the time, and big enough and is nuts about me! I believe this more and more every day. My prayer life - the gift of sensing God with me is growing. I need these core beliefs and I believe them. I believe them for you too -no matter how good or messed up you are!