Growing your life of prayer

Learning how to communicate with God

Christian Spirituality > Prayer > Growing A Prayer Life; (Please, use the following link for personal prayer requests.)

WHEN PRAYER FALLS FLAT

Prayer isn't always exciting. In fact, it usually isn't. It's usually ordinary. That's okay; ordinary is good. But sometimes, prayer is something less than that: something's missing.

(Please note that there's a lot of 'sometimes', 'maybe', and 'often' in this section. It's a spiritual matter, and those aren't well-suited to tight rules. You'll have to learn how to discern the Spirit's voice in your situation.)

Prayer Repair

Usually, such minor adjustments are enough to curb your drifting. But, let's say, you've made the adjustments, they work briefly, and then SLAM! It hits you. God's not there. Sometimes one must taste the absence in order to keep savoring the presence. And sometimes God steps aside so you can learn to persevere in prayer, to keep working at it on trust.

But then, as you keep plugging away at it, it becomes clear that something else is at work. It's not really that God has stepped away, after all. It's that there's a communication breakdown. God's apparent silence is due to a problem at your end. Something's rocking the relationship. When you reach this point (and sooner or later you will), it's time for you to find out what's up. What could it be?

Then, There's Hitting Bottom

"We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us."
--- C.S. Lewis, *Letters To Malcolm*, p.35

It sounds like a lot of things can go wrong. But there are those few times that nothing can prepare you for, no set of questions can lead you through, and no joyous experience of the past can carry you over. It is when the course of your life takes you to a spiritual dead end. Not only are your prayers stuck, but the entire content of your life has turned empty, or even disastrous. And you feel more than just that God's hiding away; you may feel like God simply wants nothing to do with you -- like a lover that suddenly left town. You can mentally 'know' God's love, and you can remember when you basked in God's love, but that seems like rubbish in your current misery and lostness. Such times are different than the common lulls and low points in life. I can tell you that at those times God rips away even the good things about your life so you can love more directly and honestly. I can tell you that God is not far away, but closer than ever. I can even direct you to the apostle Paul's letters, to ancient Hebrew prophets, and to authors who have gone through this -- who share what they've come to understand about it. But why should you believe me or anyone else? There are no set answers to your own "dark nights of the soul". You have to sort them out yourself. The only choice that remains is to wait for God, and pay close attention. The nights do end.

A Relationship? With God?

Many people wonder how someone can have a relationship with an invisible, transcendent God. But these ways of blocking out God are, for the most part, the same ways we block out other people, and they were discovered by the faithful thousands of years before there was such a thing as 'psychology'. These blockages, and many others, undermine the trust and truthfulness that's needed for building any relationship, including that with the Creator of All, the Lover of My Soul. So use the above (and below) probings as a diagnostic check-up. Awaken to these possibilities, and keep praying for guidance on these matters, even if you find your faith to be weak. You'll be led further into a mature faith in Christ. Then prayer can once again be spending time alone with Someone who loves you. Even when you're stuck, prayer is still working if you keep at it. It's working because the Spirit is at work; the God of prayer's working on you.

Another suggestion is to get one person to be your prayer partner - not your pastor (though your pastor needs one, he/she needs to choose his/her own). Seek out someone of the same sex whom you can trust, who is spiritually mature, and who is willing to commit the time and effort to it.
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Probing Deeper Into Prayer

One key way of getting deeper into your relationship with your Creator is to get deeper into prayer. But sometimes, we're afraid to ask questions about prayer, especially to ask ourselves about how we pray so we can at least find out where we're at right now. Thinking about prayer can carry us further into the mystery of what it's like to have an actual relationship with someone we can't contact with our senses. God places relational treasures at many spots along our journey.

Ask yourself some of these questions, and try some of the dares. There are many of them, but they are of the kind that puzzle people their whole life long. Go through them prayerfully, one by one, preferably with a pad and pencil or a notebook computer. The questions range from simple to very, very hard. I know that when I first asked myself questions like these, I was surprised by my answers. I was surprised by the emotions that came out (and sometimes, by the lack of them). I found out how much I didn't know, or thought I knew, or had simply evaded by pasting up a churchly clichè. I hope that you, too, can discover a lot about yourself, the community of faith around you, and the One who wants to talk with you.

Bob Longman.

Ask about prayer itself

If you pray:

• How do you pray?
• In what settings do you pray?
• What do you pray for?
• Do you receive it? Do you receive something else?
  What do you feel when you do not receive it?
• What do you expect from prayer?
  Did the Divine response surprise you?
• When you pray, what thoughts most often break in?
• Do they spring from the prayer, or do they pull you away from the prayer?
• What is the one thing which most puzzles you about prayer?
  What do you find hardest to accept?
• When you pray for someone, do you picture their healing, or being helped in some other way?
• If so, can you picture yourself with them as they heal?
• If not, is it that you don't believe that healing is possible?
• What do you most remember from your childhood about prayer or about people praying?
• Have you ever been so concerned about someone that you felt driven to pray for them?
• Is there a catch-phrase about prayer that especially gets on your nerves? Why?

Check out at least two of the early Psalms; for instance, Psalm 5 (the main Jewish sunrise prayer), 12 (against treachery), 8 (a praise of God as Creator), or 10 (re the prosperity of the wicked).

• What do you notice about what they are praying about, and how they are praying about it?
• Do you find any of it disturbing? Why?
• Which of these Psalms do you most connect with? Why?

How Close Are You?

When have you most felt that you had lost touch with God? Why?
When have you felt most intimate with God?
How have these moments affected your prayers?
What lessons did you learn, if any?

Have you ever been angry at God?
If so, when did you tell that to God?
What was it about?
Did there seem to be a response, then or later?

Was there ever anything that you felt was personally demeaning or insulting to put before God? Why?

What do you think God really thinks of you?

What is the strangest prayer you ever heard someone pray?

We double-dare you!

(Actions you might think of trying for yourself)

Some dares that anyone can try :

• If someone comes to mind right now: Take the time right now to pray for that person.
• Take the opportunity to pray with a group of praying people you don't know.
• Maybe you're one of those who finds all this talk about prayer so boring it puts you to sleep. Hmmm..... when you're having trouble going to sleep, pray! (Not about going to sleep, but about other things that matter to you.) Don't worry. God doesn't get insulted if, while you're doing this, you fall asleep.
• Do your prayers and/or meditations with a notepad and pencil (or notebook computer), for writing what comes to mind.
• When you're listening to a song that presents a situation that happens in real life, pray about those who live in that situation.

If you are not attending a church: let's take up a challenge. Attend a worship service at a church. Any church you choose, chosen for your own reasons.

• Within the service, when do the worshippers pray? When does the priest or leader pray?
• What do they pray for?
• Why do you think they pray for that within a worship service?
• In what ways are the prayers a part of what binds the worshippers together?
• If it's a liturgical church (the kind with the robes, candles, and chants), take note of the Prayers Of the Church, which usually happen somewhere between the Sermon and Holy Communion. It is intercessory prayer, praying to God on behalf of others.
• What is it that they are praying for?
• What do you think such prayer does for those praying it?
• Or for those being prayed about?

If you're a church-goer, dare these:

• When some news item really grabs your attention, made you angry, sad, determined : Pray about it -- not just once or twice, but at least once a day for four days, and from then on as long as you feel led to keep doing it.
• Try asking someone if you could pray with them --- but only when they're openly struggling with something in their lives, or at some other appropriate moment. (Odds are they'll accept.)
• Try praying a section of the Bible (say, a psalm, a prophecy, the Lord's prayer, or a section from Paul's letters), phrase by phrase, with breaks of time in between. Take the time to savor it, and pay attention for the Spirit's leadings.
• When you drive by a church, pray for that church -- when you next stop the car, of course -- that they may grow in faith and as people. Also, perhaps for their financial situation, or perhaps that they be lit up anew by the Spirit.
• Your church bulletin and newsletter have many activities listed in them. As you read them, pray for each activity, holding them up before God for guidance and for the power to do what they set out to do.
• In your worship community, who are the "gifted intercessors" (people whose special gift is praying for others)?
• What do you think makes it so special when they pray intensely for someone or something?
• Pray for them.
• Pray with them.

If you are in a church or cell group: dare these :

• How and why does your church/cell pray? How often do they meet for it?
• Does your church have any goals for their prayer life? How can these goals be gauged or measured?
• How embarrassed do you get when praying aloud in the presence of others? Do you pray for different things when with them than in private?
• Some groups take on a special burden or concern in prayer, like, say, a nation, a missionary, a neighborhood, those struck with a certain disease, etc.. What similar concern most touches the heart of you or those praying with you?
• How can the group's/church's prayers best support its purposes?
• What was the most intense prayer that your group ever prayed?
  What do you think caused that level of intensity?

(Please, use this link for personal prayer requests.)