condiments.

Have you ever said to a friend "let's hang out all day today, but I'm only going to talk to you once in the morning, before we eat, and once before bed, okay?" I hope not, If you did, I hope your friend would be smart enough to stay away from you. I mean what on earth? Only talk at certain times even though they are standing right next to you all day? Yeah right, they aren't sticking around. But wait! What if you talk to them every time you NEED something, wouldn’t that be included as talking more? HA. They would leave even faster. Would you stay with a friend who did that? I wouldn't.

I have some bad news, most of us are guilty of doing this most days. And the friend we do this to isn't an acquaintance, isn't a good friend, not even our best friend. This friend is closer than a brother (or sister), loves us enough to give His only Son, and DOES stay with us even though we treat him so terribly. That's right, I'm talking about God and prayer. Honestly, go back and read that first paragraph, isn’t that what we do to God? I know it's what I did. How can I ignore so easily the creator of the universe and all the flavors I'm so passionate about? I how can I ignore the One who saved me, set me free, loves me unconditionally, keeps me smiling when I want to cry, keeps me whole when I want to fall apart, keeps me breathing EVERY SINGLE DAY. The one who brings Joy into every aspect of my life!? I mean HELLO!? Am I getting through? I hope so. When I first head Dannah Gresh talk about this at the true woman conference, I couldn’t stop the tears. How awful! We need to be sooooooooooo glad that this Friend wouldn't abandon us, even when we do stop talking to Him.

Well now I have some good news, it doesn't have to stay this way. Something Dannah challenged us to do was to get out of our prayer boxes. Don't we constantly talk to our close friends, whether face to face, by calling, texting, facebooking, tweeting, emailing, ETC,????? We find a way. God is even more available. All you have to do is think of Him, think of all He is, remember all you are not, and start talking. And yes, you can listen too. He talks back. Through His word, through others, even through random thoughts that make you go "wow I never thought of that!" yep, that’s Him too.

Something I've started doing is praying when I'm driving. And I drive a lot, meaning I am praying a lot. At first, it was hard, I didn’t know what to pray about, I'd never talked to God this much at once before. It's become so easy now. I don’t just ask for things now. You know, things like forgiveness, and prayer requests. Not that those are bad things to pray about, but use to be I would only pray when I needed something. Now, sometimes I find myself switching from "talking" in my head, to just thinking and I find I think of things I would have never thought of (whew, to many think words) had I never taken the time to just be silent. No music, no nothing. God’s putting those thoughts in my head. And I also just take time to thank Him for things he has blessed me with, time to thank Him for being so loving and AWEsome. Those are the times I have gotten to school feeling good, the days I have felt light. He asks us to cast all our burdens on Him. We don’t need to hold them in, and not only do we GET to pour out our hearts and give it all to Him, we get blessed with extras in return! I have seen so many blessings that are a result of prayer and faithfulness. When you have faith, even the size of a MUSTARD seed, everything can happen.

God is so amazingly simple when He deals with us. We forget about that sometimes. He loves us, we love Him back, and He will love us even more. We can never love God more than He loves us. So what are you waiting for? Right now, take a moment, thank God you're alive and love Him for it.