Prayer: Tea with Jesus

When we have a problem or when something happens in our lives we turn to those whom we trust we listen to our friends and take advice from them because we both respect them and know that they have your best interests at heart. And a good friend we want to and desire to spend time with them. And when things go wrong we can find comfort and love with them.  We enter into relationship with them and many times we are able to acknowledge our failings and show who we really are. There is no bar when they ask to come we drop everything and try our best to be their for them.

But, for many people our relationship with Jesus is very different. It is formal and we hold back we put up walls and hide behind different barriers. When he asks us to come to him in the sacrament of reconciliation for example we hide and do not go ashamed about what we might reveal if we were to put a Facebook status on the relationship I suspect that for many of us it would say that “Its Complicated.” And yet this is the relationship that we need to invest time in because for Jesus the relationship is never “complicated” but is just love. 

Jesus today commands us to come to him when we are burdened because he loves us and wants us to be with him. Like being with a friend we will find rest in him. He also says that he is gentle and humble in heart he welcomes us with great gentleness holds us like a child and cares for us with such great love. 

So how do we get from the relationship with Jesus being complicated from being a good relationship that we can go and be with him when life gets diffifcult. 

Well if we take the same principle as a friendship we might have we have to start getting to know Jesus and this means that we need to get back into a regular habit of prayer. I don't mean set prayers like the rosary, Mass or devotions I mean private quiet silent prayer. But I can hear what you are saying that you do not have time for it or that you do not know how to do it.  Well I find that the best thing to do to start is to have Tea with Jesus. 

Let me explain this type of prayer it is really very simple.

You first find your favourite chair and make yourself a brew. If its later on in the day you can also use Gin and Tonic. Sit and relax turn of your Tv so no Eastenders etc and relax with the Lord just speaking to him like you would to your best friend on the phone. I call it Tea with Jesus just relaxing with him and enjoying his company. This prayer usually takes about 10 minutes. The first time you may find that this feels eternal but after a while it will be the other way around and you will want more than just 10 minutes. 

But, I can hear you say, when I relax when I get ready for prayer I have my tea and then distractions start to come into my head. We can deal with this in two ways. The first way is to let them control us although this is not useful. The other way is to have a mental box so that you can place the distractions in the box so that you can come back later to sort them out and deal with them. The other thing is to pray your distractions so for example If the shopping list comes up pray with it praying for those whom you might be shopping for. 

Lastly Jesus says Come to me have a relationship with me that means that we need to invest time in that relationship. So spend time in prayer asking the Lord and listening to him always.