Practical prayer

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Joakim
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Practical prayer

Post by Joakim » Sat Jan 23, 2016 1:05 pm

Hello everyone. I hope you all are doing great.

For those of you who have felt God's love and done some repentance and forgiveness. I am very curious as to how you prayed? What specifically did you say to God? What worked for you? What opened your feelings?

For instance if you want to repent for something you did. You intellectually found a sin in your past. Do you start from there and ask God to show you the pain you caused? Or something similar? Or do you always pray for God's love and then God will show you what direction you need to take and what you need to look at?

I have started experimenting with different prayers. I use the prayer for God's love. But also other "sentences" that Jesus have suggested to spirits for example and also my own versions to try and get into the feelings.

I have been trying to find more videos and resources on this but haven't found too much yet. I am currently going through the faith and prayer videos and I am almost done. Is the answer always the prayer for God's love? Do I experiment until I find something that works for me because it is personal?

Any help would be appreciated. And especially if you have seen a video where Jesus addresses prayer in a very practical way. But also what worked for you personally if you feel like sharing!

Thank you,
Joakim.

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Matt Mondragon
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Re: Practical prayer

Post by Matt Mondragon » Sun Jan 24, 2016 5:37 pm

Hey Joakim,

I can relate to what you're trying to understand about prayer. Consider this, if our desire to feel God's love is sincere, then God is well aware of our longing to receive this "gift". It'll happen if we're in harmony with Truth. From my experience, I found it really helpful to have a desire to understand the concept of "gift" as God does. Everything that you and I are currently experiencing is a gift. Receiving God's love is the ultimate gift. I feel, getting there is too. What I mean by "getting there" is uncovering and discovering that path that God would like us to walk with Him. On that path, we'll find ourselves in the condition to receive the gift of love from God. To get in that condition a sincere desire for personal truth is our greatest skill set. Developing a desire to receive personal truth is a beautiful process as long as were open to lifestyle changes. These are difficult changes because they affect our very personal life, so it's really helpful that God and the law of desire can assist us through this transitional period. As we walk this path with God, we'll find ourselves wanting to be more aware of every opportunity to be more loving. Whether it's an oppressive "person of authority" in the workplace or a stubborn parent, we'll always be open to God's counsel during this process of greater self-discovery. It's life-altering! Depending on our willingness to not skip over any issue within ourselves and speak and live God's Truth about love at all costs, the faster we acclimate to this new and foreign lifestyle. It is a big change. Letting everything hit my heart helps.

Are you finding that you're becoming more interested in discovering your addictions?


Hope this helps,

Matt

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Re: Practical prayer

Post by julie_bennion » Sun Jan 24, 2016 11:20 pm

Hello Guys ~
Joakim, your questions are great for stirring up all the questions I've felt & perplexed over, on "how to pray". In the end, the question you suggest ~ "Do I experiment until I find something that works for me because it is personal?" ~ that's the answer I have come to after months & months of wondering & feeling into the Big "I don't know" space. I've tried writing to God, saying the prayer Jesus offers, talking to God as best I can, which usually feels pretty lame, then just crying to, smiling at, & loving God through feeling God's creation, then wondering again... How do I, Julie, begin to Really open to feeling a connection with God?, from Thee Most sincere place I can feel in myself, from the core of my existence (if I can feel that, which is another big question that's worthy of feeling & exploring in itself).

What Matt says rings so true ~ and from there, I find the emotion that comes up when I see, understand & know that I have a)harmed someone, b)harmed myself, c)been harmed by others... The emotions take me right into opening to God where I, often automatically now, feel: I Want To communicate, exactly how I feel; And then Just Feeling... while opening to God, with all that's bumbling forth.
So, for example, when I feel really sorry about something I've said, felt, or done in relation to another, if I make space to feel everything I feel about it, including how the other was affected, then in that place, I choose to open to sharing those feelings with God. In this case I don't usually say anything out loud; I just feel the emotions, as words themselves, expressing the truth of what I have become aware of (i.e.. the sin of my choices). At some point, I usually feel some sense of completion that naturally occurs I know this doesn't mean I'm done with feeling everything I need to feel on that or any particular issue. But since being on this path, I trust that God will continue to show me where there's more to feel, more to be done, for true repentance & total forgiveness to be granted.
Along the way, I notice a growing appreciation for every opportunity that I take hold of, to feel sorry for what I've done. This is perhaps the most important piece for me, since I have done a lot of selfish, hurtful, deceitful & damaging things. I want to make amends, and stop the downward spiraling.

Stopping addictions to all of the "me,my, mine" arrogance, superiority & domination is Key For Me and, like Matt says, "Developing a desire to receive personal truth is a beautiful process AS LONG AS* we're open to lifestyle changes."
*the caps are 'mine' ;)

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Re: Practical prayer

Post by Joakim » Wed Jan 27, 2016 12:04 pm

Hello guys. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Great to get some other perspective on this.


Matt,
Can I ask you if you naturally started seeing things as gifts as your love grew? Or did you first use it as an intellectual concept that you could develop a feeling on later? If that question makes sense? The reason I ask is because what if I don't (in general) feel things as gifts? What if I feel I am lacking in appreciation and gratitude. Off course I have moments when I feel grateful. Recently I did feel very happy and grateful for something that happened with God. As love expands maybe we naturally see the gifts clearer? Has it evolved that way for you?

Personal truth is something I definatelly need to discover more about. First I sort of focused on God's love. I am still figuring out what is true about my feelings on different subjects. Mainly regarding my addictions and pains and relationships. I have had some physical pains lately and it was very hard to focus on prayer when the pain was bad. I prayed about finding the truth about the emotions behind the physical pain, but for some reason I couldn't receive an answer. I prayed to feel the emotions that were causing the physical pain. Maybe I should have been more persistent. After a few days I just couldn't take it anymore and took pills for the pain.

And yes, I have focused on my addictions lately. But the way you phrase it is interesting. Am I interested? This is actually a hard question to answer :). I guess I have some interest since I have been challenging a few "major" ones. But it is a challenge for sure. This emotional processing is something I haven't really tried before, consciously. I don't know. I am focusing on specific ones right now and they are still there after some work so I definatelly have more to do. I am still using my will-power to not give in to them. But if I can release these sins from my soul then I am guessing my motivation for continuing will also increase?! But yes, I have some interest in experimenting with it at this point.

I don't know the law of desire at all. But the way you say "desire to feel God's love" and "developing a desire to receive personal truth" is making me think. I don't think I have these desires in a strong way yet. And I have heard Jesus mention this too. That it can be developed. You mention it is a beautiful process so that sounds nice :). I would have to look into it! Can I just ask you for an example? So for instance when you encounter this oppressive person of authority at work, what could be an example of your prayer in that moment? Do you pray, or do you just let the emotions wash over you and pray about it later? Or are the feelings the prayer? :)

I have lots of questions Matt, so please don't feel you need to answer them all, or any for that matter. But thanks for your response. It definatelly helps. Sometimes I feel when I read on this forum or when I listen to Jesus that what I am reading/hearing is something I am reading/hearing now, but will understand at some other point in time :).

/Joakim.



Julie,
Well, I am happy to stir things up for you then :). I can very much relate to your efforts! So, focusing on the events where we harmed someone, or was harmed by other or ourselves is your gateway to feel!? Sounds good. To start with the events where we recognize something was out of harmony with love and then go into the feelings.

So in your example. If you have felt sorry for something, repenting, have you then ever naturally connected to forgiveness on that matter and understood why you acted in an unloving way and who "put that" inside your soul? So that you then can forgive? I have felt sorry for things I've done, but I don't think I have touched forgiveness yet.

/Joakim.

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Re: Practical prayer

Post by julie_bennion » Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:40 pm

Hello Joakim,
This morning I've been listening to Jesus, sharing with folks in Burnie, where he talks about the law of compensation as compared to the law of repentance & forgiveness. He gives an example from his own life, and a woman in the group says she felt wretched for weeks, once she realized the harm she had done. Jesus also says the repentance work, on any particulars, can take days or weeks; This for sure relates to some of my experience, so I thought to offer you the link here ~ https://youtu.be/ECXuj2xgCqA ~ You'll find this part of the discussion towards the end of the video, at 1:55.

I feel I have touched on, and been touched by God's hand in the forgiveness process, tho' I am not For Certain with this. Along the way, I have felt the forgiveness of a handful of people to whom I have admitted my errors and that has felt like a real healing & blessing. Since beginning this process, feeling about How I've affected another was firstly most powerfully when I spoke with the person, relating my regret & remorse for what I had done. But recently I'm noticing I don't need to talk with the person in order to feel remorseful, and to sense how I've affected them.

I trust that forgiveness will come as I continue to open myself to feeling where I've done harm and Yes, I have also felt where harming myself & others stems from, tho' probably not all the way through yet, as I have years to... unload. ;)

With prayers for your process of unraveling & uncovering all the jewels inside,

Julie

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Re: Practical prayer

Post by julie_bennion » Sun Jan 31, 2016 4:57 pm

And the discussion on Repentance & Forgiveness continues in the Burnie P3 video, here: https://youtu.be/-nyd92_A_QM

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Re: Practical prayer

Post by Matt Mondragon » Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:47 am

Joakim wrote:Can I ask you if you naturally started seeing things as gifts as your love grew? Or did you first use it as an intellectual concept that you could develop a feeling on later? If that question makes sense? The reason I ask is because what if I don't (in general) feel things as gifts? What if I feel I am lacking in appreciation and gratitude.
I too feel the same way at times. It's usually when I'm caught up in addiction and am wanting control over the way I actually feel. What's underneath is a needy feeling—which is always an addiction. Sometimes you just gotta let it roll. Let your feelings happen. Try not giving yourself any addictions for as long as possible and if you can make it to the point your wanting something so bad and you're about to give it to yourself, go sit and pray and just admit to yourself you don't want the Truth. Admit to God you don't want it. Feel how badly you'd like to have your addictions instead—even though you know it's causing you more harm. Cry and feel the frustration and how badly you don't agree with it all. You wanna get to the point where you're being completely truthful and you're not willing to pretend any longer. Admit you don't have faith in this path and just feel all of the feelings that come up. Get real truthful with yourself. After crying and feeling all these feelings that are waiting to be felt you'll get to a state where you're so relaxed that you immediately recognize when you're starting to tense up in certain areas of your body—and just allow those areas to relax and feel the feelings that come out of these areas. If you still feel like you want those addictions, feel how badly you want them and be honest with yourself about how you truly believe your addictions are the only things that make you happy. Pray and pray and pray for God to help you to feel these addictive cravings and just feel the cravings and the control you'd like to have over the things that come up. Do your best brother not to give them to yourself anymore. Drink tons of water, as Jesus and Mary prescribe.

Everything on this path started off as a concept for me because I didn't believe any of it. I need a concept for anything I don't believe. I've begun to feel that once my soul feels that something is true or is definitely more true to my soul than it's ever been, the word concept kind of fades away—and is only used in describing what my soul can feel.

The concept "seeing everything as a gift" requires a desire for personal truth. This desire was developed as I gave up addictions. In an "addiction-free" state, the only thing I can rely on is my development in love—and if I choose, God. In this state, I can only develop in love when I'm open to having my feelings about everything otherwise it's likely I'll start using addictions again to avoid certain feelings. You'll eventually get to a place where you'll start to feel and become more sensitive to your emotional addictions. The greater the sensitivity the more overwhelming these emotional addictions feel. I still often feel very confused about how overwhelming they are and wonder whether or not I'm processing ethically and morally—or as God would suggest. This is when I pray and ask for guidance. If I can't connect to God in this moment, it's always something I feel I need that I don't want to admit or give up. If there's an addiction there, I ask God to help me feel the addictive craving—many times it's a control issue, for myself personally. I sometimes ask to feel the damage I'm causing others by having this addiction—this helps me to get in a condition of repentance. One thing I try and always consider is the effect my sin is creating—how it's causing ripple effects throughout humanity. I consider the impressionable children I'm harming by projecting these feelings that I feel in my soul that I'm not "ready" to repent for. Once I get to a state of repentance, I try and stay there for as long as possible. I pray and pray for help to stay there.

Experimenting with feeling my addictions while not giving them to myself helped me to understand the importance of personal truth. Jesus describes the Law of Attraction as God's messenger of Truth. When you start to observe your law of attraction feeding you personal truth in every moment—and knowing the potential of healing and growing in divine love with God—you'll start to see how it's possible everything is a gift. But you have to engage God about your true condition.
Joakim wrote: Can I just ask you for an example? So for instance when you encounter this oppressive person of authority at work, what could be an example of your prayer in that moment? Do you pray, or do you just let the emotions wash over you and pray about it later? Or are the feelings the prayer?
I've had some pretty ugly experiences with male authority figures throughout my work history experience. I was in and out of restaurants for about 5 years after college. One of the restaurants I worked at in New York City was in the theater district and we were really busy every night before the Broadway shows opened their doors—7 days a week. Good money but the guy I was working for didn't care to know about my feelings—or me in general. I witnessed him using his monetary power to manipulate and hurt a lot of people and I just stood back and watched. I still feel a lot of shame about this. I didn't know how to approach him about these interactions without losing my job and getting really angry. I had a new baby at the time and I didn't feel it was worth the risk. He'd often use his anger to gain control over an interaction I was having with him. I recall talking with a customer at their table one evening and he stopped by the table, challenged me on a topic and then projected some anger at me while looking into my eyes—that was my last night working there. I found this to be a very frightening place to work but an elevating experience as I was able to work through a lot of fear, unknowingly.

I eventually moved on and chose an employer I felt honored love similar to the way I did and this was at a catholic high school as a maintenance guy. The first day I met my boss he was so upset I was hired. He wanted to be a part of the hiring process and basically projected his annoyance and frustration at me for the first 30 minutes of our relationship. I couldn't believe how consistently I was attracting these sort of oppressive male figures. About a year and half into this job I found Divine Truth and was made aware of the anger and fear I could release. Every time I saw this guy I was able to use the anger and annoyance he felt about me to discover my real feelings and work on getting used to feeling them. I had so much rage with men and the amount of control I felt they had over me. After about a year of releasing rage and sorting through my beliefs about anger and getting in to some fear about being attacked by men, my boss came at me one day and I just basically told him that "things were going to change." In this moment I was trying to feel fear but it was difficult because I was used to feeling anger under these terrifying circumstances. He wanted to pretend like he didn't know what I was talking about and I explained to him how he'd been using his anger to control me ever since I took the job (my voice sounding like I was about to cry). He kept asking me what I was talking about and I told him that every time he's angry with me, I have to feel his anger in my body and it feels violating. I know this was shocking to him but I felt it was the right thing to do. My intention was to inform him I wasn't okay with that sort of treatment of myself. Because it's a Catholic school I reminded him that he was actually violating the teachings of Christ every time he did this, particularly the teaching about treating others as he'd like to be treated. Since this conversation, I've had to remind him about a handful of times about his treatment of myself but it's much better. I still feel fear around him but now that I'm okay with feeling it I'm able to be more truthful and function the way I'd like—be myself. I've also had conversations with staff and faculty at this school regarding their treatment of myself, each other and students. I still work through fear everyday and am much better at feeling it in the presence of others.

Side note, there's no way that I would have been able to do this if I hadn't prayed. None of it would've been possible if I hadn't prayed to understand the way I actually was under all the addictive behavior and feelings I wanted to have about myself. I thought I was a good guy getting a raw deal but I was in pretty bad shape.

I've come to understand that God loves helping me feel personal Truth when I'm seeking it in my heart. If personal truth can improve my condition than it's surely a gift to receive it from God who can give it to me straight! It's pretty cool God can give us things. I find it even more amazing that God will have nothing to do with me when I'm in addiction! How helpful! Not sure how that would go over if I started treating my boss that way but I feel closer than ever to having that sort of relationship with him and others in my life. Almost everyone wants to have these addictions with me still but I do feel they're beginning to understand that I'm doing something that they might want to do at some point, especially when they can see that I care less about what they want me to do for them.
Joakim wrote:Mainly regarding my addictions and pains and relationships. I have had some physical pains lately and it was very hard to focus on prayer when the pain was bad. I prayed about finding the truth about the emotions behind the physical pain, but for some reason I couldn't receive an answer. I prayed to feel the emotions that were causing the physical pain. Maybe I should have been more persistent. After a few days I just couldn't take it anymore and took pills for the pain.
This is a difficult place to be. I remember having a really painful nasal infection after I heard about this same concept through Jesus and I tried for so long to get some sort of feedback from God while I was in pain. Don't give up on this concept. Sometimes we ignore areas of our physical body for too long and when there's no awareness of that area, there's no energy moving through it. Harmful bacterial and viral infections can form in these "inflamed" areas because of the acidic environment inflammation creates. The body is amazing! It does everything in its power to keep me healthy. It fights everything off! I give it crap to avoid some fear and it destroys anything compromising my health. I enable disease and sickness to attack the body by choosing to give my body foods that create these areas that diseases are attracted to. Understanding how to properly care for the physical body will result in a health that prefers a sensitive emotional condition. You mention how "maybe" you should be more persistent in praying to feel the emotions causing your physical pain. Although I do agree with this, I've found it to be of tremendous help and far more productive to give up the sugary and fatty foods that serve no purpose in the physical body and just learn to love myself. I feel that praying to understand the cause of physical pain will eventually be strongly desired after heart-felt love for oneself is developed. I've had a major food addiction all of my life, not sure if you can relate, but it's difficult.

Connect to God's heart and seek his counsel on every subject, brother.

Hope to be of some help here,

Matt

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Joakim
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Re: Practical prayer

Post by Joakim » Wed Feb 17, 2016 8:13 am

Matt,
what can I say. Thank you for an amazing answer. I have read it several times already. It is very helpful and I appreciate your GIFT :). I may comment more about it later. But for now, thank you brother.
Joakim

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Perry
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Re: Practical prayer

Post by Perry » Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:20 am

Thanks Matt for your input here. I found your replies really helpful and refreshing, and the way you explained your answers were really clear and concise, like a teacher. I learned a lot about myself from your replies to the questions, I will probably read that over a few times.

so thank you.

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Re: Practical prayer

Post by Amanda Stracey » Tue Mar 29, 2016 4:23 pm

Hi Joakim

I'd just like to add that for me the words practical and prayer did not go together at all. I felt prayer was some sort of airy fairy concept that was never ever going to work ...because I had no faith in God and no faith in me and no faith in love. I had no desire to pray at all and I was kidding myself that I wanted to open my heart to God. I started to try to do some work on that and for me the issue of rebellion has been important and looking at the emotional reasons for lack of faith. In the talks on faith and prayer Jesus suggests or advises making a list of all the issues of lack of faith .... So my prayers have been along the lines of......

God I have no faith that you want to love me or have any love for me can you show me the truth.....

At the same time and it's inter related I feel I'm manufacturing a longing for God because that's how I should be feeling... God fascinates me but a personal relationship has felt at times impossible and far off.

I'm definitely still learning about this prayer stuff though. One important lesson though was that even the desire to not pray was an important feeling to explore - it was my sincere feeling toward God at that time and that would be my suggestion start with your sincere feelings about God, prayer, asking for love, God's maleness/ femininity etc.

Regards

Amanda

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