PRAYER

and developing a life of prayer

ver.: 11 October 2007

There's also a PDF booklet of the pages on prayer.

(Please, send your personal prayer requests to the site linked here.)

WHAT IS PRAYER?

Prayer is, at its heart, the communication that is the fabric of the human being's (and human species') relationship with its Father. When a Jew, Muslim, or Christian prays to God, the very act itself assumes these to be true at the very least :

• that there's One beyond each and all of us, beyond all that is around us;
• that this One cares enough to bother with you;
• that this One cares enough to want your response;
• that this One cares enough to respond to you;
• that this One is effective enough for that response to make a difference.

That is, when we Christians bother to pray at all. A rather large part of the Christian church rarely prays. They are not much different from the typical agnostic. Both doubt that prayer matters, or doubt that God loves them, or doubt that they are clean enough, or doubt that God is able to make good things happen in this world. If that's the way you think, I challenge you to just do it.

• Don't worry about your doubts.
• Don't worry about how much time you spend at it.
• Don't worry about using the right words.
• Don't worry that you might think something really bad and God will get mad.
• Don't worry about whether you're 'ready' to pray.
• Don't worry about whether you have the right theology of prayer.
• Don't worry about thinking of something to say.

PRAYING TOGETHER

Americans and Europeans tend to think of prayer as a solitary thing -- locking yourself into a closet to pray, or maybe heading off into the desert or in a retreat. Private prayer really is important to our relationship with Christ. Yet before it is anything else, prayer is something done with others : the Body of Christ (that is, the church as the fellowship of believers in Christ) -- the Body as it is found around you, wherever you are -- the small group gathering, the people laying hands in prayer on someone in need, the great crowds in auditoriums or tents or arenas, in concerts of prayer, at home, at campus bible studies, in convents, at campgrounds, at prayerwalks, at anti-hunger fundraising events, and more than anywhere else, at the church building, at worship. In worship, someone else is saying, "Let us pray...". You're not doing your own thing, but you're choosing to join others. And you-all are not doing it according to some pattern cooked up the night before, but according to a pattern developed over thousands of years, in a direct line from the public prayers of the people we read about in the Bible.

And how did all those people over all those years develop it? They gathered to hear the Word and to do the acts that the Lord had set down for them. They heard, felt, saw, smelled, tasted, and sang God's love. The Spirit knit them together, as in a quilt or tapestry. And they responded in prayer. Their public prayers taught them a lot about what private prayers were about. In public :

• they prayed when they didn't feel like praying;
• they prayed when they didn't want to pray;
• they prayed when they'd really rather do something else;
• they prayed when they had trouble concentrating on praying;
• they prayed when they weren't ready to do it;
• they prayed the Word by basing their liturgies and readings on the Scriptures;
• they prayed for and with those they were in conflict with;
• they prayed about people and matters that they wouldn't have otherwise thought to pray for or would have forgotten to pray for.

(Well, much of the time they did.)

Sounds like they needed a lot of discipline to pull it off. Right! They learned the basic disciplines of prayer by praying in worship services. They learned that others are praying with them about the concerns they shared. And they discovered that there is great spiritual power when Christ's followers pray together with unity of purpose (or 'in agreement'). From praying together, they learned that prayer was something far grander than the prayers of any one person. In prayer on their own, they learned that prayer can be as small as two -- you and God -- and that prayer fails to be truly your prayer when you aren't intimately involved. The lessons of community prayer feed back into private prayer, and the lessons of private prayer feed back into the community. That way, prayer lives as a whole, much as it was in the Psalms.
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Start Small

When you read books or hear speakers or take courses on prayer, it's very easy to get intimidated. Prayer can get so deep, so all-encompasing, so blissful, so difficult that it seems to be out of reach. But God isn't asking you to pray like Francis of Assisi or Jeanne Guyon or St. Anthony, though you can learn from them. God is asking you to pray like you. The Lord doesn't really care if you've ever prayed at morning's first light (though it is a great time for it). God doesn't care if you ever went on a prayer retreat, or walked a prayerwalk, or kept a journal -- good things all, but that's not the point. God is reaching out to your consciousness, your mind, your soul. God wants your love.

So it's a good idea to start small. Or to re-start small, if you're coming back to God or if you've been badly broken. Small means little I-love-yous and thank-yous and have-mercy-on-mes. They're short, like post-its or glances. But if they're heartfelt, God takes them for what they are : real communication. It's small, but sometimes that's all we can manage to do. As confidence or love grows, you'll want to share more. That will come. But first do what you can. Then keep at it and grow it bit by bit : "Help me learn to pray", or "Lead my friend to believe in You".

A 'YES' TO GOD

C'mon. I dare you. Try these questions and dares.

(Please, send your personal prayer requests to the site linked here.)