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Talking to God in Russian

When I was a music minister I prayed in front of the congregation every Sunday.  Almost every time I started with an awkward silence.  Sunday morning was full of running around, making sure everything was ready, running over songs, making sure I knew the right announcements to make, etc.  So my brain was always racing.  But when it came time to pray, I wanted to talk to God, and I didn’t want my mind wandering all over the place.  So, I paused and reminded myself that I about to speak to the King of Glory.  It’s time to pay attention. 

My goal in praying is to try to remember one thing above all others: God is real, talk to him like it. This means that often my prayers are awkward. After all I am talking to the Creator of all things, the King of the universe, The only One who knows all of my secrets, and so on.  Don’t worry, I know Jesus has called me friend and I can talk to him like that too.

We recently learned the Lord’s prayer in Russian.  Then we learned vocabulary for prayers.  And now in language class, we start the lesson by praying in Russian.  So, I’m doing something I have never done in my life.  I’m writing prayers.  We are still learning the constructions that go with each verb, like “Bless Smile House and help us prepare for the people who will soon live there.” 

Its weird, because I don’t think I’ve ever written a prayer.  I don’t want to say things to God, I want to talk with Him, and I always felt like if I wrote my prayers it would be very easy to fall in the trap of just saying things to him. 

But now, I’m writing my prayers before I say them in class.  They started simple because I was just practicing the new verbs.

God thank you for today
Heal Anya
Bless our ministry
I love you
I Praise you
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Work of masterpiece right?  Now I’m working on saying things that are a little more complicated, which means the construction is more difficult, and so in class, I will read one line, get corrected, make notes of my corrections.  Then, I try to always remember and actually pray and ask God to help me to forgive like he forgives.  Or ask him to increase my faith … that one does not translate anywhere near word for word.

So now my challenge is to learn how to talk to God and remember that he is really real, while trying to think of what to say in a language that is still very awkward for me.  Its hard, because I want to just work out in my head what I want to say, force it out and then collapse in a heap of exhaustion, because, honestly, Russian is one of the most exhausting things I’ve ever done.  It’s never smooth, but I’ve always thought God would rather my prayers be real rather than smooth. 

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