Talking to God

September 5, 2025

Maria Listening to God, Prayer, Psalm 62, Worry , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Psalm 62:8 NIV

As I write, we’re passing over Des Moines en route to Seattle for Mike’s 50th high school reunion.  Shortly after sunup, after feeding the cats their breakfast, I slipped out into the cool misty September morning to walk and pray and off load my travel anxiety.  After a few minutes taking in beauty, physical sensations and sounds, I turned inward, thinking I should start praising God.

I surprised myself as I just began chatting to God, not using any structured prayer or format. “Wait a minute. I have a Father. I don’t have to follow a script. I can just talk to Him as I would to my own dad. After all, wouldn’t I find it weird if Wes or Graham were to initiate each conversation with me, their mom, praising me for my attributes? 

For sure, for what I value most with my sons is when they share their hopes, their worries, their dreams, and what makes them laugh. I love their jokes. Simply put, I want them to be real, to be themselves around me. I love spending time with them.

So while taking in the beauty of the early morning, I began simply to talk to my Father about what was on my mind. It felt natural and free flowing. Occasionally, I spontaneously broke into praise. My mind then moved towards friends and family who needed Divine help. Intermittently chattering tree frogs captured my attention and made me smile. I simply enjoyed being present with God in His creation.

Pumping my legs, relishing the fresh beauty, savoring the freedom to be transparently real with God made for a relaxing start of a long travel day.  Sure there is a place for using Scripture to pray in a more organized manner, but I imagine the Lord smiles when we just want to be close to Him.

Control issues?

February 22, 2024

Maria Listening to God, Mark 6, Prayer, Trusting God , , 1 Comment

He told them to take nothing for their journey except a walking stick—no food, no traveler’s bag, no money. Mark 6:8 NLT

Are you practiced at off-loading your anxieties onto Jesus?  Do you have a means for getting them out of your head, either expressing them out loud as you talk to Jesus or writing them down?

Confession time:  This post about what I currently am angsting about is probably going to seem VERY silly-stupid to you!

Yesterday morning, distracted by swirling thoughts during my quiet time, I stopped and wrote down everything I feared, each matter weighing on me.

I’m soon going to make a short trip alone. I’ll be gone 4 nights.  Usually, when Mike and I travel by car, I pack a cooler and bags with our kind of food and snacks. Lots of protein and some of my low-carb almond bread for lunches.  Compared to many Americans, we probably eat weird. By all means, for dinners, we are grateful to eat what our hosts provide.

On this trip, I will be helping my sister-in-law go through Mom’s apartment, sorting, saving and getting rid of things. Among other things, I’ve been stressing over what to do about lunches.  Eating out is pricey and the food I could bring or fix would be much healthier.  But it’s complicated because we’ll be most of each day at Mom’s independent living place. Her former apartment has only a kitchen sink and a frig. No big deal since the residents receive all their meals in a common dining room where they can socialize. But what am I going to do for lunch? I don’t want to plan without taking Eve into consideration. She eats breakfast. I don’t for I wait until lunch for my first meal.

As trivial as all this is, the fact remained is that ‘it’ was bothering me. So, I stopped and told Jesus.

After I flushed my concerns out of me and saw them on paper, I did the next step I learned from Jamie Winship (see his website: https://www.identityexchange.com/ ) by asking Jesus:

What do YOU think? What do you want me to know?

And what do you want me to do?

Distractions taken care of, I picked up with my prayers and bible reading. About a half hour later, Jesus’ instructions to his twelve disciples from Mark’s gospel popped into my mind.

Is that what you want me to do, Lord? Take nothing? Make no provision?

Then an ‘aha’ question occurred to me: Might you thinking I have a control problem?

Is this your way of teaching me that I can trust you?

Five times, I sensed he was kindly and gently responding ‘Yes’

I took a deep breath and said, Okay, Lord. Have it your way.  I WILL trust you. I don’t think I will starve.  I’ll pack a lunch just for my travel day there and count on you to provide. Maybe it IS time, I practice what I say I believe about you being my provider.

Not that it’s not okay to take provisions with you.  But I’m realizing that this opportunity might be both a gift to me to see him come through as well as a way to loosen my grip.

I know my two daughters-in-law would totally agree with Jesus. They are both health-conscious women but relaxed about food in a way that I have yet to grow into. 

So, an adventure awaits. I’ll let you know what happens on the other side of this trip.

But what about you?  If you are a westerner, you probably struggle with control issues in some area(s) of your life?  Just to name a few…..do you trust God for the salvation of your grown kids?  For God to bring in sufficient income each month? For your relationships with difficult family members or people at work and at church?  For guidance about important decisions? For enough time during the day to get done what you must?

We all cling to our independence in at least some area of our lives.  God has let me go on ‘in my way’ for a while. For sure, I’ve changed some. But this feels like a bigger step, not to take any food with me. But I DO want to practice trusting God! And I’m putting my money on him that he’ll surprise me with his gentle goodness.