Did You Have Your Loud Time Today?

When I really need to pray about something I go for a drive in my truck.  

Driving has the right amount of distraction.  It requires enough focus that I can't be doing anything else, but is automatic enough that I can freely talk to God about what is on me and in me.  

The other good thing about it is that I am in a little box, sealed off from the outside world, so I can get loud and people don't think I have lost it (which I have in some senses).

So I drive around, gesticulating wildly, shouting my prayers to God, and sometimes crying.  I am sure it is quite a spectacle.  The danger of it is a lack of reverence.  Any time you start raising your voice with God you have to be careful that your heart is right.  I try to be careful to say something like "I know you are right, but it feels to me like..."

Fill in the blank.

"you are not there."
"I don't have the strength, patience, and love to do what you are calling me to do."
"it is all death and no resurrection."

You get the angle.

That first part about knowing that God is right is crucial.  It is deep folly to assume that I am right and God is wrong.  Nevertheless sometimes I have to wrestle with him to get to seeing things right side up.  These kinds of prayer times are almost always wildly beneficial and overdue.

I was encouraged today when I read and was struck by a description of Jesus' prayers that sounded an awful lot like my loud times in my truck.

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence." Hebrews 5:7

Well, the loud cries and tears part.
I try really hard to imitate him in the reverence, and I see there in Hebrews how crucial it is.  It is why he was heard.  Jesus' reverence is also why I am heard, and I really want to imitate him in it.

I don't think I usually associate loud cries and reverence.  I think I usually think of reverence as quiet and still.

I don't always have a quiet time.  When I do they are usually far less helpful than my loud times, so long as they are clothed in reverence.