Back Up

I want to back up today.

If prayer is communion and conversation with God, let’s back up and look at those dialogues back in the garden BEFORE Adam and Eve departed, where they learned what it meant to have real communion with Him…before it was broken.

God spoke first.

Genesis 2:16, 17 - The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;  but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

He told Adam where to eat so that he might live, and what to avoid so that he might not die.

God initiated communion with his creation, the ones he created in his image, and the first thing he told them was of his provision to live and his directions to stay alive.

God is always the initiator.  He pursues us, he gave his life for us, he is always waiting on us to turn to hear his voice as he speaks life to us.

Since the first call to communion with God was his call to obey so that we might live, let’s think about that for a moment.

Perhaps prayer starts with an invitation from Him to live, to eat from his provision, and to stay away from that which he tells us to avoid.

Perhaps this one thing – listening to our Father speak – is missing from the beginning of most of our prayers – and it’s why we start out with a heavy heart and get up with the same loads we were carrying…when we pray.