Relationship with God

I've been reading a book about hearing from God. In thinking about this subject and praying I've begun realizing the most important factor in hearing from God is listening for him and recognizing his voice or communication. Furthermore, in order to listen and recognize it helps immensely when you have been praying to Him in faith and speaking to him from your heart. It tunes your heart and mind to the Lord's frequency if you will. Jesus spent the night with the Lord in prayer. All night long he was praying. So often I will find myself convicted that I need to pray more and so I will say a few sentences, a paragraph of words or maybe a page length of prayer to God and then... be done. After I finish praying, once I've said 'Amen' my mind tends to start shutting Him out again. Paul said that we should 'Pray continually.' (1 Thes. 5:17) It's hard for me to understand how to do that. I have great trouble with multi-tasking sometimes, because I have never been able to focus on more than one thing at a time, in fact I wonder if anyone really can. Another concept of multi-tasking is to keep switching from task to task focusing on each one periodically rather than the idea of focusing on all the tasks simultaneously. This seems more realistic, however I think what Paul/(God.. aka. God's revelation to Paul) had in mind was different from each of these two ideas. I think it was more like a colored lens that filters light. There's a phrase about looking at things through rose colored glasses. It refers to people who only see good things even when times are tough and might be seen as bad to someone else. I think this analogy can also be used here in that when we live life we see all things whether good, bad or neutral with a perspective of God and his hand in them. We should see everything in life through the lens of how it relates to our personal God. That is, we should see life through God-colored glasses if you will. Praying is more than just speaking a sentence of communication to God in your mind or aloud. Praying is about focus. The idea of focus has been a fascination of mine for some time now. The Bible speaks of the power of the tongue. Which I agree it is powerful. However, the focus of one's mind seems to me to be the precursor of the tongue. A person's focus is a seed for actions. My friend and youth leader when I was growing up, Roc Moore, used to say "what a mind thinks on, it will seek to act out". Dreams are fantasies that have the capacity to capture hearts. Sometimes they are grandiose fantasies, sometimes they are simple. Dreams are dangerous because they can be deceptions. But good dreams, dreams that are true can be an anchor for our souls. What I mean by this is that a useful tool in fixing our eyes on Jesus and focusing our minds through God-colored lenses is to hold onto the dream or picture of reality that the Bible paints for us. When we realize that the truths taught to us and promises given us in the Word are more than just exciting stories but an actual reality, then our dream can become to see those truths fulfilled in our lives. Then we can strive to let that dream capture our hearts. I am striving to hold onto the dream of intimacy with a personal God. The Bible speaks of many stories where God had a personal relationship with individual human beings. I believe each person should seek out fulfillment of a dream to have relationship with our loving God. In Jer 29:13 it says, "You will seek me and find me if you seek me with all your heart." My problem and the problem of many I suppose is to not be whole-hearted and persistent in my seeking. This comes from not truly having a dream a.k.a. a heart for this reality of intimacy with God to exist.