With regard to prayer, guilt can be and has been an issue for me. However a couple of years ago I discovered it was false guilt and (unlike the convicting kind of guilt) completely unhelpful.
You see I’ve always found it hard to have a vibrant prayer life indoors, be it at home, work or church. That lead to some feelings of guilt. Why don’t I feel at ease chatting to God indoors? What’s wrong with me? Is my prayer life a failure?
Eventually after a reading a book on the subject of prayer (I forget the title), I realised that actually, different folk commune with God in different ways and in different settings – and, this was very freeing for me, that’s the way God made us!
So for me my prayer life is most vibrant when I’m outdoors, usually on my own on a walk or hike somewhere. Time disappears and I can chatter on to God indefinitely.
This doesn’t mean that I can’t pray at home,church,work etc. I can and I do. But it’s just that, in the main. The great outdoors connects me to God and the words somehow flow more easily.
I’ve always been inspired and amazed by the beauty of God’s creation. As a keen amateur photographer I love to both get in close and photograph the micro as well as to capture great expanses of scenery with panoramic shots. I think photography has helped me look more attentively at nature and at creation. I have seen some amazing things down the lens that I never new existed!
Light is something I’ve always loved. Rainbows, sunbeams, sunrises, sunsets, headlamps in fog, colourful Christmas tree lights, blob lamps, candle light and so on.
In Revelation chapter 21 the bible talks about a new city that God will build when we have a new heaven and a new earth. The foundations of the walls of the city will be made of precious gems but only specific ones:
“ 19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.“
All these gems have something in common – they’re all crystalline in structure. This means that when light passes through them it gets refracted (or split into it’s component parts).
Further on in chapter 21 it also says that:
“The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.”
So imagine, as God (who is the Father of heavenly lights – James1:17) walks about the temple, his light will refract through the gems in the temple walls and give off rainbows of every colour and description!
I’m looking forward to seeing that for the first time! I just hope cameras are allowed 🙂
Back to the topic in-hand. My main point is this. Whatever your main thing is, whether it’s reading, painting, music, photography, jogging, rock climbing, or just being still within the walls of a simple chapel, whatever it is, that is when your spirit is most alive and that too is when you will find prayer most rewarding.