Steady as She goes'

I must admit that there feels like a certain amount of pressure to perform at this point.  I guess that is just the natural human reaction whenever you know people are watching you.  but it can also be a bit of a weight to carry, so I hope that i can push through that like the ship merging out of the fog in todays painting.  I continue to have to remind myself that my painting is not about me, but rather about my spending intimate time with God in prayer.  I tend to notice the days when I have trouble keeping focused on that, the paintings don't flow out of me as freely.  It's almost like when your in prayer with God and your reciting words, rather than really having a conversation.

  Prayer sometimes seems a hard thing to do when you are doing it intentionally.  I mean during my days most all the time at some points during the days i find myself talking to God, but then if i actually sit down for a 'time of prayer' it's as if i feel that I have to come up with the perfect order of words to say.  once again it's that whole 'pressure to perform thing'. It's funny how that being around other people causes a difference in consciousness. I wonder what the disciples felt like whenever they actually stood in the presence of God when they were with Jesus.  why do I wonder what they felt like, when if I believe everything I read in the bible then i should believe that Jesus is in my presence at all times.  why is it that to seem real something needs to be seen?
I just think about how it must have been hundreds of years ago.   before we had the means to figure out what we are breathing in to keep us alive.  just imagine, not having a name (oxygen)for the substance we take in every time our lungs expand not knowing that it, in itself helps keeps us alive.  yet because of our curiosity as humans and over time we have dissected, experimented, and figured out a way to explain 'everything' that seems to go on around us. To such a point that it makes it hard to believe that there could be anything that is inexplainable.  I want to believe the unexplainable though and i want to believe that my prayers are already answered (matthew 21v22) even though the physical results may not have been seen yet.  Lord help my unbelief.  I want to know that when i am praying that what i am praying is being answered even as I speak.  Help me to know this. AMEN