What part does prayer play in your decision making? Tim

First, let me thank you for daring to ask me this direct question. :) I'm going to share some thoughts that may well have nothing to do with what you were thinking, but I want to make a point about what prayer is or may not be.

In the religious sense, prayer plays no part at all in my decision making; in the living reality that it is, prayer is part and parcel of who I am in him in every way.

Now of course, I realize that might irritate more than answer, but I couldn't give you any real answer by suggesting that prayer - as we learned to perceive it - plays a vital role. I suspect that some of contemporary decision-making prayer has more to do with a sense of religious obligation than with truly communicating with the God who is our life.

We too often want simple tell-me-what-to-do answers so that we will do the right thing, and so that's how we usually ask what we ask for. How could that be anything but right? However, right easily displaces life. We want to know what to do so that we feel confident in doing it, don't we? It seems to me that some of the way we've learned to pray and then listen for God's leading might be more akin to consulting a fortune-teller or some kind of human counselor.

What if what we really need, especially for making decisions, is wisdom? And I don't mean a specific here's-what-I-want-you-to-do type of wisdom. More like this:

For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. Ephesians 1:15-21

What if my prayer sounds less like tell-me-what-to-do and more like give-me-insight-into-my-true-reality? What if my decisions flow out of the wisdom that has been given in answer to that prayer?

Jim :)