When I was first married, I would attempt to pray with my wife. But one of the things that I had a hard time doing was shutting out the rest of the world. So I would take time to enter into the most Holy place of humbleness before attempting to communicate with God.
This was a complicated process of visualizing myself walking past a ton of people into a church. Then past the people inside who would worship, then past the priests, then past a veil and finally into an inner room. And all the noise would dissipate. Then it was just me on my knees. quiet and ready to ...
.... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz my wife was out cold. She would simply go to sleep while I was trying to have this uber spiritual moment. The silence was broken and I was back out in the crowd, angry and frustrated.
Perhaps my idea of getting alone needed to be when I was alone. So I sought after a new prayer technique and I adopted this for many years. I would use it in group settings as well as at meal time. The cool thing is that it really does force you to think beyond yourself.
It was called ACTS. It's easy to remember because it is one of the books of the New Testament.
A - Adoration. Spend time thinking specifically about God, what he did (creation to Christ). I find it enough to say "You are amazing. You are beyond my understanding. Everywhere I go, you're there. Wow!"
C - Confession. This is harder to do in groups, so if this isn't a group you want to dump all your sins on, it is best to be general, "I'm messed up and you know it." But if you are alone or with a person pushing you in your walk with God, I would get specific, "God, I cheated a customer today, I lied, I was selfish at home."
T - Thanksgiving. Take time to recognize the goodness He has brought you in the day. Really, I should say the good and bad. Everything has a purpose, we should be thankful for each moment.
S - Supplication (Requests). I've had a hard time with that one - but you have to admit ACTR just isn't a good acronym. Really, after powering through ACT, you're probably itching to get to your requests. But you'll find that at a meal or after a meeting, by the time you've gotten through ACT, you're probably wanting to wrap it up.
So the beauty of the model is that you put your requests last. And you spend less time with your laundry list for God and you've expanded your conversation with Him to be more than just the same old same old. The other thing is that it reminds us of the different parts of growing a relationship. Surely, if you care about your fitness at all, you don't just do ONE thing. Like having the strongest right arm would look and feel stupid if the rest of your body was not proportionally balance.
So my challenge is to work on deepening your conversation with God.
If Adoration is hard for you, check out the Psalms. Read what others said about God. You'll start to get the picture.
Psalm 8
Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
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