Prayer

What does it mean to be a people of prayer? What does it mean to have prayer as a defining characteristic in a community? What does it mean for that community to be birthed out of prayer?

I love the idea, the concept, the passionate life that is lived when every moment is a prayer, where all of life is worship to God. How much time do we spend though talking about prayer, about worship, or about community vs. the time that we spend living it?

Prayer as breathing. Breathing God in and breathing out in to life, to the everyday, the people that you meet and the ones that you know. Prayer is so inclusive too. There are not lines of who is in and who is out, like there can be in a standard community, where there are usually rings of inclusion and levels of commitment.

Life as prayer, connecting to God, being with him. And as you live out of that place, the things in life take on importance in the proper proportions. Things that really do not matter, don't. And the things that break God's heart, (those things that we can ignore if we get distracted enough) work there way in to our hearts too, softening and tweaking and re-aligning til our hearts break at those things too. And the things that are joyful, are full of goodness and joy again too.

I met a man at work yesterday who told me that life was to short and that as his age, life could be over at any point. Life is too short to not have a personality he said. He was a character for sure and had great wisdom too. Just being ourselves and having that personality that is distinctly yours is so freeing to you and the people around too. And it frees you up to care about the other people around you too. Because, if you are comfortable in your own skin, others are comfortable to relax in their skin too. How great would it be to be a person who people are free around.