Do you Pray like a Consumerist, and don’t know it? Many of us have slipped into a consumer mindset, and don’t realize it. (It’s a North AMerican speciality!) It could be hurting our spiritual growth.
Here are 5 questions to ask yourself to see if you may need some kind of revision in your communication with God.
You may be praying like a consumerist if…
1. Your praying resembles window-shopping, or a trip to the superstore with a credit card.
2. If you imagine God a bit like a waiter, or butler in the sky.
3. If bargaining or haggling seeps into your communication to God.
4. If waiting for answers to your prayer requests is just as awful, or feels eerily similar, to waiting in a long checkout line.
5. If your prayers tend to be mainly focused on you, and your concerns, and often do not include worship, praise, gratitude, or…and this is a big one…listening (because communication doesn’t consist of just talking).
If you answered “yes” to 2 or more of these questions, consider revising how you view and engage in prayer, and communication with your God: Creator and Redeemer.
The Takeaway– Prayer is communication.
It changes us because through it we may become more like our God, if we yield to God and allow him to work in our hearts. When God is the primary focus of our prayer life, more growth is possible. And like I mentioned, this involves both speaking and listening to him.
(For a new way to engage in prayer using Scripture, and a focus on listening to God, do a search here for Lectio Divina.)
Thanks for reading!
Leave your responses. Was there ever a time when you prayed like a consumerist?