What is prayer?

Prayer can work miracles. There once was a boy named Johnny who had been a very naughty boy, so he got sent to his room.[i] After awhile, he came out and informed his mother that he had thought it over and then said a prayer. “Good,” said his mother, feeling very pleased. “If you ask God to help you behave, God will help you.” “Oh, I didn’t ask God to help me behave,” said the boy. “I asked God to help you put up with me.”

Prayer truly can work miracles. So what is it? What is prayer? The answer to that question is unbelievably simple and incredibly complex, all at the same time. Prayer is talking with God. It is a conversation. That sounds pretty simple, right. We know what conversation is. We know how to talk. But the idea that we, mere humans, might presume to engage in any kind of dialogue with the Almighty God, the Creator, the Alpha and Omega, the one who holds all things in the palm of one hand … now that’s audacious! And then to believe that this Almighty One would LISTEN! And care. And respond. To what WE have to say … that is truly remarkable. But it’s true! Not only does the Almighty God make time to hear our prayer, but God INVITES it. God WANTS to talk with us. Why? Because God loves us, and God wants to give us good things. So God calls us to pray.

When Solomon became king of Israel, he set about building a temple for the Lord so the people would have a place where they could come and worship the one who had created them and rescued them. Not only had God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, the Lord had rescued them from sin and danger and disaster time after time after time. So they built a temple where they could worship their Redeemer. Once it was completed, they held a special service to consecrate it, to set it aside as a holy place. And Solomon prayed, saying, “I have built you a house, Lord. A grand house. A place where you can live forever.” And they worshipped and feasted and celebrated because God had been very, very good to them. And then they went home. That night, the Lord appeared to Solomon and made him a promise. In 2 Chronicles 7:14, the Lord says, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” God promised to be with them. To help and forgive and bless them. If they would pray. If they would humble themselves before the Lord. If they would seek to do what God wanted them to do instead of what THEY wanted to do, God would take care of them. All they had to do was pray.

So how do we do that? How do mere mortals communicate with the Almighty God? In her book “Help. Thanks. Wow: The Three Essential Prayers”, Anne Lamott defines prayer as communication from the heart. “It is a cry from deep within…”[ii] It is the human heart reaching out for the eternal.[iii]

In fact, the poet and hymn writer Richard Baxter once wrote that the purpose of prayer is to spend time with and to get to know God.[iv] “It is, in the first place, a life of deepening acquaintance with God, a life of removing the layers of misunderstanding that obscure our relationship with the Holy One.”[v]

Richard Foster, author of “Celebration of Discipline,” says that prayer “catapults us” into the spiritual life. It ushers us into “perpetual communion” with God.[vi] And this communion changes us. Foster writes, “The closer we come to the heartbeat of God the more we see our need and the more we desire to be conformed to Christ.”[vii]

Prayer is a powerful thing. An important work. It takes us right to the very heart of God. And maybe that is why it intimidates so many of us. We are afraid that we might say the wrong thing or do it “wrong.” But prayer can take many forms. We can pray for stuff. We can pray for people. We can even pray for ourselves.[viii] Lamott says, “We can pray for a shot at having a life in which we are present and awake and paying attention and being kind to ourselves. We can pray, ‘Hello? Is there anyone there?’ We can pray, ‘Am I too far gone, or can you help me get out of my isolated self-obsession?’ We can say anything to God. It’s all prayer.”[ix]

Lamott believes, and I totally agree, that “when you’re telling the truth, you’re close to God.”[x] And, many times, the truth is NOT pretty. But if you are grieving or in pain or just plain MAD and you say to God, “I don’t like You at all right now,” it’s okay. That may be the most honest thing you have said in a long time.[xi] And God can handle it. God is big enough to take on your pain. God is big enough to take on your sadness. God is big enough to take on your anger. In fact, God may be the only one who can.

Maybe the truth is you’re not so sure that there IS a God. And that’s okay, too. You are not the first person to doubt God, and you will NOT be last. But your skepticism does not change who God is or how much God loves you. If you are not sure what you believe, perhaps you can begin by praying as if you DO believe that God is real. What have you got to lose? Act as if God is real and that God cares enough about you to want to hear what you have to say. Start where you are. Start with your truth. Tell God what is in your heart.

You don’t have to worry about the words you use or how you express them. Prayer happens all kinds of ways. It can be spoken or silent. It can be done whether you are sitting or standing or kneeling. Prayer can be sung or danced or chanted. Prayer can take the form of poetry, pottery or painting. Prayer can be quietness. Prayer can be stillness. Prayer can be contemplative. Prayer can happen when you are alone or in a group. Prayer can be recited from memory. Read from a book. Or spoken off the cuff. Prayer is as diverse as the people who pray because, above all, prayer is personal.

Prayer is a personal response to God.[xii] God is always trying to communicate with us, through scripture, nature, the teachings of the Church, preachers, friends, music, sports…. God can use anything, really, to get our attention. God once used a burning bush to get Moses’ attention. And locusts and plagues were messages intended for Pharoah, but he was just too stubborn to listen. And we do that, too, sometimes. We ignore the things that God is trying to tell us. Sometimes, we ignore them intentionally, and sometimes, we simply do not pay attention. We are too busy and distracted by other people and concerns and work. But prayer opens us up. Prayer opens us up so we can hear what God has to say. And prayer opens us up to what God wants to do.

Wendy Wright, author of more than 20 books on prayer, teaches that prayer is a process of letting go. “As we mature,” she writes, “we encounter ideas and events that profoundly challenge the sense we have made of human life. Sometimes the encounter is shattering, so much so that we feel, or may actually be, utterly adrift.”[xiii]

When this happens, Wright explains, we try all kinds of things to regain our sense of balance. We may retreat, deny or reject our experience. We might adopt “a callous cynicism” or “face into apathy.” We might create rigid and separate spaces for things like religion or business or politics or relationships.[xiv]

But prayer, she says, is “that radical and risky opening of self to be changed by and, in some way into God’s own self. It is a formative life; it changes us and our perceptions. It causes us to see beyond our present seeing. Thus it is a life of continual dying, of being stripped over and over again of the comfortable and familiar, a life of letting go and allowing a reality beyond our own to shape us.”[xv]

That may SOUND scary. Making ourselves vulnerable always IS a little bit frightening. But, when we are open to God, then we are also open to receive the good things that God has for us. Things like wisdom and power and courage and love and direction and hope and healing and wholeness and forgiveness. All these things – and so much more – can be ours if we are open to receive.

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer

O what gifts we often forfeit, o what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?

Precious Savior, still our refuge; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer.

In his arms he’ll take and shield thee; thou wilt find a solace there.[xvi]

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[i] The story of the naughty boy is titled “Helpful Prayer” and was published on the Christians Unite website at http://jokes.christiansunite.com/Prayer/Helpful_Prayer.shtml. Copyrighted @ 1999-2016. Downloaded August 2, 2014.

[ii] Anne Lamott. “Help. Thanks. Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.” New York: Riverhead Books, 2012. 2.

[iii] Lamott, 6.

[iv] John S. Mogabgab. “Editor’s Introduction.” Weavings. July/August 1992.

[v] Mogabgab.

[vi] Richard Foster. “Celebration of Discipline.” 33. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978. 33.

[vii] Foster, 33.

[viii] Lamott, 4.

[ix] Lamott, 5.

[x] Lamott, 6.

[xi] Lamott, 6-7.

[xii] Gerrit Scott Dawson. “Companions in Christ: A Small-Group Experience in Spiritual Formation Participant’s Book.” Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2001. 111.

[xiii] Wendy M. Wright. “Contemplation in Time of War.” Weavings. Reprinted in A Guide to Prayer for All Who Walk With God. Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2013. 291-292.

[xiv] Wright, 292.

[xv] Wright, 292.

[xvi] Joseph M. Scriven. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” The United Methodist Hymnal. Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989. 526.