Are you clumsy at prayer like me?

Our budding socialisation is keen on teaching us math, geography and science as critical skills of life and sundry tools of solving ours and the problems of the world we grow into. Many of us have reaped great rewards from academic education.

Yet you realise as you mature that perhaps life is packed with a little more humps and intricacies than your classroom grooming may have prepared you for.

It may have been implied at home and in the school yard, but I did not imagine just how important the art of building inter-personal relations and networks would become as a primary building block of life. To this day, there's no such subject in all syllabi. Yet nothing appears to me more important than the ability to interconnect, to reach out and network with the next person, even with those that are not in your immediate circle and those that you so often disagree with.

It was vaguely implied, but I don't remember anyone deliberately teaching us to love, to be pleasant, to be courteous, to care and to look out for each other... I have memories of the reverse training and all around me I feel the tensions, the competitive angst, the selfishness... Yet I have grown to learn that nothing in life is greater than love, compassion, integrity, companionship and sound relationships with family, friends and other people.

I know just how hard it is for me and many out there even to utter the words "I was wrong. I am sorry..." Yet nothing, no words are important today for the world, for our country, for our communities, our churches and families! But there's no school of apologies out there. No school of forgiveness. No school of love.

Isn't it just weird that we tend to bump into these absolutely critical life-giving lessons almost incidentally? Is it a wonder, therefore, why we are erratic and often so clumsy as a people at these positive attributes of life?

I was thinking about these things when I realised, committed Christian that I am aspiring to be, that I am so poor at one of the first and most important duties of a Christian: Prayer. Life has taught me that prayer is perhaps the most important weapon of life in my entire toolbox! Yet it is the one weapon I know least about.

I kind of understand why no one bothered to teach me how to make love... I fumbled along. But how is it that they forgot to teach us the precise method of as important a life tool as prayer?

Are you as clumsy at praying as I am?

And when you pray, don't be clumsy and amateurish like myself. Often I feel I am all over the place, like one who's only fulfilling a Christian ritual. Hardly coherent.

Mumbling some mumbo jumbo you have had repeated by others which hardly issues from deep within your own heart.

You need to pray for the spirit and the knowledge to know how to pray, pray for the ability to enter that prayer-zone. It is not automatic, it must be learned.

Be structured and focused. Let the spirit lead you, but by all means have a knowing method towards your prayer session. The time and timing is very important. I pray, often spontaneously as I go about my stuff around the yard ... I use the long two-hour walks on the road to pray, (the mask helps a lot, you can mouth your words without anyone noticing!) I pray in the bathroom. I pray as I trim the lawn, as I drive down the road...Everywhere, I find that moment to slot in a prayer. I make it a habit to speak to Jesus, to invoke His presence in whatever I touch, say and do. I find it takes away so much of my grind, the anxiety that follows me around subsides. I feel ever so calm, in control and confident.

Yet it is not enough. You must reserve a special prayer time everyday in your schedule. Alone. Undistracted. Free. In a private prayer space. Completely at the disposal of your Lord, God. Unpretentious. In your complete humility, dedicate an hour or two of deep prayer and special, personal connection with God. It is that prayer and that personal meeting with God that gets you in the correct God-zone and sets up all the factory settings for your day, your week, your work, your thoughts, your relationships.

My brother and guardian angel, David Munyaka, said to me when we met in the Holy Land last year: "My man, don't meet God by accident. You have not one room in that house if you don't have a Prayer Room." My Prayer Room is work-in-progress!

Without that deep personal engagement daily with God, you often feel exposed, you're weak and timid, like one unclothed, you're anxious, you're alone and vulnerable. Well, don't be!

Create your personal vava voom for life, for your day... Uvuke, uyebangena in total faith and divine confidence.

Structure your prayer

I already taught you the appropriate times, good preparation and approach effective prayer... ie, don't just Boom! God bla bla bla... No! Approach prayer with more seriousness and greater preparedness than you do a job interview. Prepare. Plan. Think through it. The brain is a minefield of millions of criss-crossing thoughts every 3 seconds. Most is bin-worthy junk. Empty your thoughts of all junk if you intend to have a useful chat with God. Meditate and zoom into that Alone space with God...

Everyone has their preferred time and place ... Mine is between 0230hrs and 0330hrs in a special corner of my study... There, in the dead quiet of the night, in my baptism gown and my rosary, I pursue some measure of sincere connection with God.

I am not young, but in matters of God I am still wet behind the ears... I am no authority at all, but I encourage my own spiritual growth by sharing my stuttering steps and experience. I got God's angels encamped around me that guide me, advise me, protect me and suggest lil spirit nuggets that reap great rewards for me... I've kinda followed this 5-point Prayer guide which my sister re-affirmed with me lately.

Step 1) Pursue God...

It's like knocking into God's private quarters and seeking permission to be allowed in. It is a deliberate process that you must learn to pray though effectively. Look here, God can't speak to you or hear you if He doesn't know you. Get the correct introduction and protocol of entry.

How do you get to know God and be known to God? Not one person, even in the Bible claims to have met the person of God... But only through the Son, Jesus Christ. Get to acknowledge Jesus first as your Lord and Saviour and as The emissary-in-chief of His Father to you. Ungeke ufike kuYise ngaphandle uhamba ledombo lakho uJesu Kristu.

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Zii Masiye ziimasiye@gmail. com