Do you pray while you are shopping?
If not, why not? God has clearly indicated that He cares deeply about everything we do down to the smallest detail. In fact, his smallest details are much more minute than I am capable of keeping track of on any real level.
How far should you take this?
As far as you like. My experience is that the Lord delights in our attempts to understand him better and use his wisdom more deeply in our lives. So what am I suggesting?
- We ask before we go if we are to go
- We ask where to go when we go
- We ask what to buy when we’re there
- We ask which particular product to pick off the shelf. This is only true, in my case anyway, when we are buying durable goods or items that might be contaminated. Increasingly I pray before buying meats, dairy products, and raw veggies. But this is crucially important when buying items like mixers, toasters, cars, or anything that might be a lemon. I’m tired of the creep tricking me into grabbing a bad product out of a group so I have to go through the routine of returning items, fixing items, and so on.
- Cleaning them up when we get home. One of the major revelations in our life was when we realized that purchasing products and bringing them home gave demons access to our house. Now we routinely clean up anything we buy. For questionable items, like incense, we are especially careful.
Pray without ceasing
You know the injunction in I Thess 5:17—this is one of the major ways that works out in real life (in our experience anyway).