do you have a PLACE of prayer?

[endure]

how many people believe in having a specified PLACE to pray?
i really do.
i dont beleive our prayer life will ever become what it needs to be untill we have a TIME...and a PLACE... to meet with God and pray.
like a temple... not becuase God only comes to certain places, but a place to focus your thoughts and perspective and be holy set apart for nothing else.

joel 2.17
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar...

im sure it means many other things too, but it seems God is giving them a designated place to weep and seek him. between the porch and the altar describe being IN the temple.... praying IN the temple... between the outside porch and the inside altar.
i remember the bible stating that Jesus had a place, a garden, a place where he frequented to pray and seek the Lord and spend time alone with God.

i remember one time i was in a certain part of my house and i was being tempted and really struggling with an issue, a corrupt desire. and i remember praying casting down all unclean thoughts etc, but what really changed things was when i stepped through the door of my bedroom...and it was like "fwooom..." the temptation was gone... it was totally defeated...it just left, the moment i walked in the room...
and i believe that is becuase my room is my temple, my meeting place with God, its a place where i have met and wept before the Lord many many times, and its a place that become a home and a resting place for me to go and meet with the Lord, it really is easier to seek the Lord in my room than nearly any place.
the presence of the Lord was in there, and it defeated sin. becuase the bible says the presence of the Lord is a hiding place, a pavilion, a covering unto you.
i think it was a elisha...
but he had a certain room in a house, and when a boy died he took the boy into that room...and brought the boy back out alive.

HE TOOK THE DEAD THING INTO THE SECRET PLACE...AND IT CAME ALIVE, AND THEN HE BROUGHT IT BACK OUT TO THE WORLD.

peter was said to have frequently prayed on his roof.
daniel was said to frequently pray in a certain part of his home i think.

i think we all need a secret place, like psalm 91.
we need a temple like place of our own, to go and meet with God.
i believe there is a reason he told them to weep in a certain place.
i have had greater experiences with God in places where he is frequently sought, than pretty much anywhere else.
its like his glory is hanging in the air...like a residue of his annointing is remaining there.

its strange...in the bible some people simply cast a dead man into a tomb once, and the dead man touched the old bones of a old man of God who was laid there, the dead man came back to life!
whos faith was that? who prayed?
what could it have been except the anointing that remained on those bones becuase of the life that man of God lived?
it was the place... the place...
my God... we need a frequenting place...a place where he meet with God...and establish a temple like place.
there are times when if i can make it to the secret place...i know ill be ok!
there are times if i can just make to my church, the house of God... i know ill be ok!
there are times when i was messed up, broken down, defeated, but limped back into the sunday school room where my brother men of God passionatly seek the Lord frequently and meet with God and do great exploits... and me just getting back into that room, refreshed me and made me whole, becuase of the annointing that is there.
i beleive that anyway.

do we all have a place and a time? to pray?
its amasing how unsure we are about whether or not we will pray and spend a quality amount of time and experience alone with God...untill we have the time and the place set...
not to say we cant pray anywhere and everywhere, but i think we need a special place, a place above all others, to really forget the issues of life and pray, and to carry the issues of life too, and to be healed...

we must have times when we really spend hours or so before the Lord in weeping and prayer, seeking his face to that we can be changed and recieve something from him, not just a quicky between things...
and to do that we really need a place to go and be alone...

well be blessed.
Lee.

 

[oworm]

Im an early morning prayer person. i like the quietness. I usually pray in the evening too. I like to disconnect the phone line and turn down the lights. generally i like to pray as much as i can throughout the day while im going about my work or driving between jobs etc.

When the weather is good theres a hill not far from my home that i like to go up and pray. It takes around 2 hours to get to it over hill and glen but when i reach the top its amazing to look over my city and pray for it. I like to spend a few hours on the hill reading the bible, praying and just appreciating the open space and lonliness. I plan to go there in summer and spend a night there.

 

[endure]

wow.. that is awesome,
im glad your wrote that, thankyou.
i hope God does a work in your city.
Godbless you.

 

[Grommit]

Hey Endure,

I usually pray at home in my room when everyone else is asleep and it's quiet. When I have struggles or a major issue facing me I tend to drive up into the mountains, (kinda like Jesus did¹ ), and pray there. As for being required to have a "Place" for prayer, I don't believe you need one. I know God said to pray without ceasing which would be hard to do if you could only pray in one designated place. (I'd be stuck there forever!) heh. When Jesus talked about prayer, Matt. 6:5, Luke 11 & 18, etc... His main point about prayer is not location, but the attitude with which we pray, how we pray, and the importance of prayer in general. Jesus only said to find a 'secret' place to pray not because you need to have a place of prayer but because prayer is between you and God and no one else. (This is not to say I do not believe in public prayer.)

Think about all the times you are away from your home, or where ever your place of prayer is, and you have a need to talk to God? Are you out of luck until you get back home?

Having a place for prayer sounds like a cool idea, but, I don't think it's required in order to please God or to have him hear your prayer.

Just my two cents...

¹ Note: Btw, I'm not saying Jesus drove a car.

 

[looksgood]

No...a certain place is not NEEDED, but it is HELPFULL. In my room I have a chair that I pull out and use as an alter. There is nothing speacial about it, but I think it is good to pray offten enough that you actualy do end up with a normal place of prayer. It is a good reminder to me that God put something in me that wants to seek Him.

 

[endure]

gommit
well man i hope i can really explain what im trying to say... becuase i really dont disagree with anything you said.

im not saying that we need to confine our prayers to a certain location.
but rather that we do need to have a specail place where can go and pray.

becuase the bible says we must worship him, the bible says we must pray and sometimes pray for hours if need be. the bible says we must allow the word of God to be engrafted into us.
and all those things take time...
the bible says in hosea that we must "...seek him, till he come..."
there are times we must tarry and wait in prayer.
sometimes we have to forget about prayer and just worship instead becuase its not about us just receiving, but about pleasing him.

Jesus prayed all night sometimes for a reason, not becuase he was Jesus, not becuase he enjoyed it, but becuase he knew he needed to tarry for somethings... Jesus asked "can you not tarry for one hour?"
we ought not be unfamiliar with spending lengthened and long amounts of time alone with God.
where we are free from time limits, free of distractions, free of people, free of everything EXCEPT FOR HIM!
and that means we need places we can go... to do this.

i praise God that we can pray everywhere.
but often, God requires us to lay before him for maybe even and hour or more, to see if we really are serious about something... becuase when you arent willing to tarry in prayer for it, it proves that you dont really care...
and even more than that, he often wants to just stop asking for things and just worship him, for maybe even and hour or more...
and because of that, it makes it very convienent, if we have a certain place set aside specailly for that.
thats is why God gave the priests a place to pray and weep...between the porch and the altar.
but ya know thats it.... weeping before God.
thats when you want to break loose from everything and just go and be alone with him...and thats when you need that place.
sometimes, people like to hold on the the truth that God hears us everywhere and at all times, becuase they dont want to discipline themselves to such and extent that they have a time and place where they specially set aside that to go and seek the Lord.

a man that knows the Lord 5 mins at a time, doesnt know God like a man who knows him for hours at a time.
Becuase he can talk to us anytime...but sometimes God in all his greatness and honor and glory requires to shut everything down, and honor him and him alone and worship him and seek his face, before he really unveils himself in all his glory.
and that is what i want...
and that is why i need a place...

 

[ukok]

I pray at anytime. Often it is on my knees at the side of my bed. But also, of course, i kneel in the pew at church, i pray in the car ( not that i'm THAT bad a driver), and throughout the day. I pray the rosary also. When i am feeling particularly led to pray, perhaps as a result of some bad news for example. I may just fall to my knees where ever in the house i happen to be, but usually it is in my bedroom at the side of the bed.

If i find myself in wide open spaces i love to 'talk' to the Lord, and also when i am in Cemetries ( boy am i a fun person!).

Edit to add: we also pray as a family, in the lounge, after reading from the Bible together. This is largely unstructured. But always extremely rewarding.

 

[Oblio]

Oblio's Icon corner (A bit old, I need to get a new pic)

 

[Brooke]

I like my bedroom floor. But now as there's a lot of bad memories associated with struggling through prayer, that spot doesn't look appealing at all anymore.

 

[Alenci]

endure, thank you so much for talking about that. that is such a wonderful suggestion, and i think it really would be so helpful to me in my relationship with God right now... to have a place to go when i need to pray, and a place where when i am there i am reminded to pray... a quiet place to get away from everything and just spend time with God...

God bless you!

 

[Eleana]

I feel very much comfortable when I pray in the bedroom on my study desk. That's the first place that always come to my mind when I need to pour out my feelings and get reconciled with God. I can cry my heart out to Lord without feeling of being scrutinised by others in church.

 

[endure]

alenci
PRAISE GOD! thats it...
run with it.
Godbless you.

Eleana
thats awesome, great to hear.
you really feel that way at your church though?
Godbless you.

brooke
well what happened? if you dont mind me asking.

everyone.
thanks for your replies!

Lee.

 

[Brooke]

The usual. Spirits attacking me, struggling to pray, not knowing what to say, feeling fearful and insincere... It's torture. I really don't like praying because of all that. It's so, so hard to do, and I feel tired inside after each time. I think it's actually my biggest challenge.

 

[endure]

brooke
well those things happen, its part of the fight.

though if you dont mind me saying so, you probly arent experiencing prayer the way God wants you to, if those are the only things you can relate to about prayer and your prayer time.
theres alot more to prayer than the warfar part. it really is a peaceful pleasent experience, it is a time of rest.

im sorry, me saying this, and me talking about the lord of the rings, i hope i dont sound like a nag, i know this sounds really bad...im sorry.

but really, prayer is supposed to be a time of refreshing and rest, its something your supposed to love doing, the warfar part is only a part of it.
i hope you do go on to loving and experiencing the beauty and fullness of prayer.
prayer is a time of resting and meeting with God, not simply a time to get things done in the spiritual realm...

well Godbless you.
Lee.

 

[Brooke]

I hope so too. But I'm really a hopeless prayer-person. If Jesus said that His spirit prays in and for us,making prayer our of our wordless sighs, then I don't doubt He's been doing an awful lot of it these past couple of days.
(grim laugh)

 

[endure]

well thats alright, just go on to greater things.

seek change in your prayer life and it will come.
ask him to show you how to pray, and very gently if your still enough and sensitive to his spirit, hell slowly begin to lead you into a better way of praying.

 

[endure]

my God....
ya know God just showed me i misquoted that verse.
they said TEACH us... to pray.
not SHOW US... to pray.

and thats important, becuase prayer really is something you have to learn how to do, no one starts out praying greatly.
but its not something you can be shown and then you copy it and doit yourself, prayer is so deep and full, it has to be learned and understood as you walk in it for years, you cant have someone show you by demonstrating it to you.
its not something you can copy.
it takes a great depth of understanding through walking in it, its a process that takes time to learn and grow in.
you cant be shown it, or see it from afar and then you know how to act it out...
ya know?

Lee.

 

[Geoff_Conn]

My bedroom is my prayer closet. It's not noisy and it's just me, so I close the door and pray. Plus when I'am praying for long times in the spirit, I just lie on the bed. I soak in my bedroom, i read my bibles and books in my bedroom, and use the net in my bedroom. So I also watch GOD TV visit ministries and forums all from my bedroom.

 

[endure]

thats awesome, keep it up man!

Godbless.