Pudding Prayers

Know what I love? Chocolate pudding. I thought instant pudding was so awesome until a certain amazing pudding company came out with individual serving packets of pudding powder. Instead of messing around with an entire batch of pudding, I could just pull out my little single serving pouch, dump it in a mug, add milk, and chow down on my chocolate treat–all in about five minutes.

Sweet.

Know what I don’t like? Non-instant chocolate pudding. You have to cook it. My word, I have to wait for it to heat up, wait for it to cool down… And then, it just has this weird mouth feel to me. I have to get used to it before I can enjoy it. It takes a few bites for my mouth to go, “Mmm. Chocolate.”

Here’s the problem. Sometimes, I treat prayer like instant pudding. I run in, stir up the waters, chug down my mug of godly chocolate, relish the fact that it’s just like last time, give a quick, “Thanks, God,” then rush right back out.

Prayer should be like cooked pudding. Time in worship to warm up, to get close to God. A good long simmer in His presence. A good thank you time to cool down. But here’s the scary part… Remember how I said I don’t like the “mouth feel” of cooked pudding at first? When we take that time to slow cook with God, sometimes He tells us something we don’t necessarily want to digest. It’s different. It might be conviction. It might be a new calling. It might be change. But it requires us to adjust.

That’s one of the reasons I think I shy away from cooked pudding prayers. I don’t want to be uncomfortable. Like the cooked pudding, I don’t like to change. (Sound much like the Pharisees from Monday’s post?) It doesn’t feel right at first, because I’ve grown lazy and used to quick and easy.

So… think about this season in your life. Are you an instant pudding prayer? Or a cooked pudding prayer?

And are you craving chocolate yet?

-JB