The First Step

When you have a problem, do you go right to the fixing stage or do you spend time trying to understand why the problem exists before the fixing stage?

My first step is understanding the problem fully.  One of my biggest problems lately has been with prayer.  I have failed to understand why we do it if God is truly sovereign.  If God already knows, why bother discussing it?   Much to my surprise, I woke up this morning to a full understanding of why I struggle with this.  It's not the solution, but it the first step.

By being in church, this is what I learned by example about prayer:
1.  You ask for what you want and if you don't get it immediately, you just keeping asking.
2.  The more people you have asking for this specific thing, the more likely it would happen.  If enough people weren't asking on your behalf, it might not ever happen.
3.  It was ok to ask for whatever you wanted, no matter how outlandish the request might seem...even miracle size.
4.  Occasionally, someone might be thankful that one of their requests was fulfilled.
5.  The most important request was the first one you made, the request to be forgiven and accepted as a new creation.

Gosh, reading it now...it almost looks like the same thing I've learned from hearing fairy tales of genies that pop out of magic lamps.  No wonder I was confused!

A few weeks ago, a very wise woman explained prayer to me in a different way.  Ok, it's not genie-esk.  Her explanation was that prayer is the relationship with have with God.  My interpretation; prayer is a fancy word for just good ole' conversation.

That was easy enough to understand.  But why was it still hard to get?  Why was a conversation or relationship with God so difficult for me to grasp?  And that's what I woke up understanding this morning.

Without a doubt, there are two things I have always struggled with my entire life.

The first is believing the intangible.  To me, intangible is make believe and make believe is bad.  I wasn't allowed to play as a child, leaving me with an impeded ability to believe what I cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste.  I missed out on those developmental years where creative play, making it almost impossible for me to be ok with the intangible.

The second is relationships.  I attribute this problem solely to my childhood.  For obvious reasons, my parents didn't foster or encourage relationships with anyone.  I think what's worse is that they didn't have a relationship with me, at least not one which would be considered anything close to ok to mimic with others. 

It isn't that I haven't ever had relationships with anyone, I have.  I have been with my husband for 17 years.  I have one friend that I have been close to for 13 years.  I now have several friendships that have been established since I've been in church.  Honestly, I attribute the success of those relationships to the other person.  If they hadn't given me patience, understanding and an enormous amount of unreciprocated love, I doubt they would have lasted. 

Through trials and time, I have learned that I can have conversations with each of these people.  I know most of the time, I hold back.  I still have the fear that if I share everything or the really ugly, they will surely leave or judge me.  It's just my natural instinct to withhold some information or not allow myself to be fully vulnerable. My husband, who has been with me the longest, would even tell you that getting me to open up to him fully is nearly impossible.

So, I finally understand why I am struggling so much with prayer.  From beginning perception to not being ok with the intangible and dysfunctional relationship skills, I understand why it's so difficult for me.

Whew...that was a big first step that took a while to take.  Now, how to fix the problem.  I think that's going to be more difficult.  The comfort of understanding the problem only gets me so far and I don't know what to do next.