In the Garden

"And He walks with me and He TALKS with me..."
Since the night that God showed me all the ways He has been working on this request, I have endeavored each time I pray to include a time of thanking and praising Him for the ways He is still working on this request. Last night, as I was looking back over this journey, I began to think about all the prayer that has gone into this request. To God's credit and the work of the Holy Spirit in me, I realized that there have only been two days in which I did not spend time in prayer for this request. That, in and of itself, is pretty amazing, but what amazed me even more was that each and every time I have spent in prayer, the Holy Spirit was in the prayer and not once that I can recall has my prayer become a vain repetition of words. That was one of my biggest fears at the beginning. I did not want this prayer to become something I do out of habit, or to check off an item on a spiritual to-do list. It was imperative that each time spent in prayer be a fresh and new time spent with God. I have prayed for some of the same things over and over, so how did these requests not become hurried, unfocused requests tossed in God's direction? That would be the Holy Spirit at work in me. If I have learned nothing else in this journey, I have learned how to turn my prayers over to the Spirit and let Him direct. Every prayer has been a real and genuine conversation with the Father through the Holy Spirit's direction. It has astounded me how much God wants to talk with me. When I first began this prayer, pretty much it consisted of "God, here's my request, here's the promises you made, please be faithful to your Word. Amen." Those early prayers lasted maybe 15 minutes at most. I try very carefully not to look at a clock now before or after my prayer time, but I would estimate that my prayers now take close to an hour and sometimes more...why? Because God has an awful lot to share with me concerning this request. I mention the time, not to brag on myself, but to point out that God does want to talk to me, if I'll just let Him.
There are SO many more things I pray for in this request now, exciting things that I can't wait for God to answer. Why? Because I take the time to not only talk to God, but to let Him talk back to me.
"...and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other, has ever known." truer words have never been spoken.