Just a year ago, my prayer life was very weak. And the bulk of my prayers took place while laying in the bed before I dozed off, mid-sentence before squeaking out a few minutes of incomplete thoughts (less than twenty minutes a week).

However, during the last twelve months, I have been praying much more routinely, regulary, sincerely and earnestly (several hours a week). And a whole new world has been opened in the upper room as a result of increased prayer and daily Bible reading.

This new spirit-filled daily prayer life is nothing like the former state: It’s much more of a spritual dialog instead of a brief ritualitic monologue. Still, as I press toward expressing myself as a man after God’s own heart, I find it difficult to ascertain just how much I should pray for my personal well-being versus the benefit of others. As a matter of fact, I find myself praying substantially much more for others, almost to the exclusion of my own personal interests.

As I contemplate it now though, I am prone to believe that each of us are to pray for our collective strength: i.e. (Our father, Our daily bread, Our debts/trespasses… etc.) In doing so, we will not be neglecting ourselves or others. But more importantly, the emphasis must be for building us up in and for the glorification of God.

Perhaps when we become more like the psalmist, we will truly pray without ceasing because we will take every thought to the Lord in prayer.

Seriously, the fundamental difference between eastern meditation and Judeo-Christian meditation is that the eastern flavor requires an emptying of the mind in order to receive enlightenment, where the J/C kind requires a filling of the mind with scripture. So the Bible is definitely the framework for my meditation.

Oh, by the way: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” I didn’t say it (King Solomon, Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Again, I appreciate and value your POV, as well as all the others I have been receiving.

Blessings!

I appreciate that your material comes from meditation but I have the feeling the bible is providing you with the framework within which to work.

It’s a long time since I read the bible so it’s great to be able to benefit from your in depth knowledge. Most, if not all of my loose ends seem to be arriving full circle at the bibles wisdom. So as you say – nothing new under the sun.

I believe we all see the same but our different points of view affect how it appears to us. Add to that the difficulty of trying to translate what we see into langauge with the limitations imposed on us by temporal and social factors and I think we can explain most of the differences between religions.

To get to the truth behind the words I have often taken key concepts from different religions and asked myself, if they were both describing the same thing but from different angles what would the thing really look like.

One of my interesting conclusions was that Original Sin and Karma are 2 different religions attempts to describe the same concept from different cultural view points.

Love V

Just new ways of experiencing them.

Thanks for your input, Visionary. I very much appreciate the way you look at things and the way you make me make me think (against my will, of course). :oP

Seriously, most of what I am trying to post is the result of meditation more than study… although the study always help keep the proper context.

Thanks you again!

The human being who wrote the psalm was made to the same blueprint design as you and I. Their hopes, fears and desires were the same as yours and mine. Their milieu was the only thing that separates us from them.

If someones prayer is from the heart, it must ring true for all of us no matter the time or place. Truth is universal.

Thanks for keeping us all educated on the bibles wisdom. I love your educational posts.

Love V