Practicing Faith: Prayer

Well, hello, and welcome back to the Pastor Talk podcast.
We’re thrilled to have you with us as we continue on.
Really, we kick off sort of the substance
of our conversation in this new series
that we’re doing called a practicing faith.
And as we talked about last week,
Clint, I think it’d be worthwhile if you are new
to the conversation to jump back
and listen to that conversation.
We’re really trying to engage these practices
in a way that isn’t judgmental,
that it’s not pointing out ways that we’re failing,
but really offers an invitation to each of us
to consider the ways that we can become more aware
of God’s presence in our lives.
And so we’re glad to have you with us in this conversation.
I think it’s safe to say or fair to say
that neither of us really present in this conversation today
about prayer as experts in that topic,
rather as those seeking to learn and to grow ourselves in it.
In fact, if I was gonna make a personal confession,
it would be that I for a long time
sort of yearn to grow in different practices of prayer.
And so this is in some ways for me,
both a reflection on what has been,
but also an aspiration to what might be.
And I think that is probably something
that most of us share as we turn to the topic of prayer. Yeah, and I think probably not surprising for people
that in a conversation about spiritual practices,
we’re going to start with prayer.
Prayer is in many ways the foundation of a spiritual life.
Although we don’t mean by that the idea
that people lock themselves in their closet for hours on end.
There is a place for that.
But if we think of prayer as that
primary mechanism which we communicate or seek to interact with God,
that we open ourselves,
not just that we talk to God,
but that we listen for God’s voice
and God’s direction in our life.
And really,
maybe, Michael, as much as anything, prayer is,
we tend to think that developing our prayer life
is about the speaking part of it and doing that better.
When I think, scripturally speaking,
really the point of prayer might be to develop our ability
to discern God, to listen for God,
to understand what God is asking or calling us to do.
And I think maybe in that sense,
we can have a much broader conversation about prayer
than simply, “Here’s how we do our part of it.”
And I think as we get into this conversation,
it’s helpful to remember that it is relational.
Prayer is undergirded by the idea
of a two-way conversation with God
and not simply us talking to,
but talking with
and listening to.
And I think sometimes as we practice prayer, quote unquote,
maybe that gets lost in the shuffle.
And some of that’s the fault of,
to be honest, the church and worship services,
it is hard to carve out the kind of space
and solitude and quietness in a worship service
that allows us to simply have the time and space to listen.
So as people interact in church,
as they grow up going to church,
prayer is almost always a series of words.
It’s almost always the talking part.
And as such, I think we sort of embody that idea
and it may be helpful to realize
that’s only a very small part of the big picture. I couldn’t agree more.
In fact, I was gonna turn to the same place.
I do think that we often,
either consciously and I think even more dangerously,
subconsciously begin to associate the idea of prayer
as a kind of public performance.
And I don’t mean performance in a negative sense.
I just mean that we often attach it
to that thing that you do with other people.
You pray over the meal,
for instance, or in worship, you pray in front of a group of people.
And what I think is dangerous in that,
Clint, is we all know how culturally the fear of public speaking
is almost a universal thing.
If you’re not comfortable standing up in front of others
and saying a prayer,
that doesn’t put you in the margin.
That makes you part of a large group of people.
And I’ve always laughed,
you know,
after stepping into the office,
the vocation of pastor,
you’re often targeted as the one to pray at events.
You’re the one that’s asked to pray before that group meal.
Maybe it’s a family gathering,
maybe it’s a public sort of setting.
And it’s funny because the pastor
has no more direct connection to God.
That prayer is no more effective.
God isn’t any more pleased by it.
But I think that’s a reflection
of this assumption that we bring.
We want our prayers at its best to sound good,
or maybe to sound a particular way.
And if that’s the impression that we have grown up with,
or if that’s a thing that we’ve allowed ourself to believe,
we’re always going to feel some measure of lack
in our prayer life.
But to be fair,
in our relationship with our spouses
and our children and our friends,
we would never talk to them
with the kind of public way
that we talk to God in prayer,
in worship, right?
We talk with the people in our life
in a much more unstructured,
a much more relational kind of way of speaking.
And I think as we talk about prayer today,
we’re not going to be talking about the style of prayer,
as much as we’re talking about the heart
with which we come to prayer,
and that that can open to us avenues of prayer
far beyond the ones I think we often consider moments of prayer. Yeah, and it may be helpful
to have a little bit of language
so that you understand where our focus is today.
We talk in worship about corporate prayer
versus private prayer, and corporate prayer being that prayer with people
in the body.
It’s incorporated into worship.
And that prayer does have a sense of public speech to it.
It’s often said out loud.
Many times it’s led by an individual.
And then when we talk about private prayer,
we are really focusing on that prayer
that is more often between us and God.
It is sometimes not spoken out loud,
often probably not spoken out loud.
And I think for the purposes of our conversation, Michael,
while corporate prayer is certainly a wonderful practice
of the spiritual life,
I think most of our discussion today
will find ourselves more on the side of the fence
of the idea of private prayer,
the idea of our own spirit connecting through God,
often with words, sometimes without,
in a regular kind of way
that hopes to lead us to some kind of spiritual growth. Yeah, and I think to help us into that way,
it helps for me at least as I consider prayer
to look at the breadth of scripture,
Clint, because we find in the scriptures
far more kinds of prayer
than what you might initially believe.
I think we do come to this topic
with a very sort of particular view
depending upon your background,
your own faith story.
If you grew up in a Pentecostal,
charismatic,
evangelical tradition, your prayers often sound different
and you feel different expectations
than if you grew up in a Catholic or Lutheran
or even Presbyterian context.
And I think it’s important to find that in scripture,
prayer is often far more diverse
than we give it credit for.
And I think what we find is in prayer,
the people of God establish and are reminded
of their continual relationship with a living God.
And for that, I point to the prayer
that Jesus taught us to pray, the Lord’s Prayer.
It starts with what I think is for many of us
a common statement, but it is in no way common.
Our Father, to call to God with that kind of relational word
is really a beautiful and also spiritually challenging
address,
it’s to call the Creator,
the Redeemer, the Sustainer, the God who is in so many ways
beyond our ability to conceive in a relational word,
in a word of connection and deep meaning.
And that is both a profession of faith,
something that Jesus calls us to believe and lean into.
But I think it’s also an invitation to the format
and to our understanding of prayer.
That as we approach God in prayer,
as we come to God and seek to establish
this kind of conversational dialogue,
that we’re doing so not as people
who are speaking to God formally
or trying to get something out of God,
but rather those trying to address someone
who we have a relationship with
and we’re trying to deepen that relationship. Yeah, and I think it’s helpful,
Michael, and I think that’s a good point,
to remember that there is a tremendous diversity
of the experience of prayer,
even within our own Bible.
So there are prayers of confession when we have failed
and we’re feeling the guilt and the pain of our failures.
There is prayer of intercession
when we are hurting on our behalf or someone else’s behalf
and we are begging to God.
And then there are prayers of relationship,
prayers of growth.
Lord, I want to grow in this area.
And each of those prayers are relational,
but in different ways.
The moment that you cry out to God
in hurting for someone else
when the cancer diagnosis has happened
or you are praying at the foot of someone’s bed
who is deathly ill,
that is relationally only in the broadest sense of the word.
We go to God because we believe in our relationship
about God.
God cares about those moments
and cares about us in those moments.
But we are unlikely in those moments
to feel tremendous growth in that relationship.
That will happen later as those events are unpacked
and as we reflect on the experience.
In the other hand,
when things are going fairly well
and we take the time to sit
and maybe it’s outside at the lakeside
or at a mountaintop or someplace that is inspiring to us.
And we can simply reflect on the beauty of creation
and listen in it for the voice of God to us.
Those may be very powerful relational moments
where we would look back and say,
“My faith was really encouraged in those moments
“and I felt like my commitment to God
“was deepened in those series of understandings
“and those series of experiences.”
And so I think it’s helpful
to know that there are many ways to approach prayer.
There are many purposes to prayer.
They all fall under this heading of relational,
but they will feel different in different moments.
And I think, Michael, the disservice that we the church have done
because we each come from our own sort of slice
of the family is that we sometimes lean too heavily
on our own way of doing that.
So in the Pentecostal spiritual traditions,
the idea of a written prayer or historic prayer is sometimes undervalued.
In our own tradition,
we sometimes are not as comfortable
and as qualified at the extemporaneous prayer.
Some people think you can only pray
with this kind of language or prayer,
always must be formal or informal.
And I think the point we want to make
is that the more one knows about the breadth of prayer,
the more one can experience the opportunity
to engage in it,
the better one will be able to speak that language
in all of its various forms.
If you’re not a person for whom prayer comes naturally,
there are absolutely stunningly beautiful
and deep historic prayers written
by the fathers and mothers of our faith,
those who have gone before us.
And if you spent some time simply reading
and reflecting and re-praying their words,
that can be incredibly powerful.
There are other moments when prayer needs to be spontaneous.
And I think a prayer life that embraces all of that
is richer for it. Yeah, very much.
I think if you want to see some of the breadth of prayer
available to any person of faith,
you could simply read through the book of Psalms.
I mean, the Psalter has been a historical,
rich,
deep mind from which Christians have found
a diversity of voices in prayer.
In fact, I’ll be honest with you, Clint,
one of the reasons why that book has been so challenging
for me to read and to study is because on one hand,
you’re reading it and there’s this beautiful affirmation of God’s power,
God’s majesty.
And then suddenly it’s this prayer against the enemies.
And then not long after that,
you’re suddenly praying a prayer of confession
for sins that have been committed.
And immediately or shortly following that,
there’s this prayer of deep grief
and sadness and you quickly learn
that there’s this kind of Christian vocabulary
that we often have not fully embodied.
In fact,
some of the ancient fathers and mothers
of the church literally lived their life through the Psalms.
They would read the Psalms at the beginning,
middle, and end of the day.
And that became a routine.
There’s a very significant amount of resources
you could easily find online with a quick Google search
of readings for the day.
And it’s as simple as that calendar
that you flip to the new thing,
to the new day,
and there’s new inspirational quotes.
They have that for the Bible,
a ways in which you can sort of practice
a deeper vocabulary of prayer.
But it’s not just the words that we say.
And I think that’s what I want to move into here,
Clint, is there’s also maybe ways of prayer
that you’ve never considered prayer.
I think one that I would point out there
would be contemplative prayer.
We often think of prayer as the thing that we say,
having words that we speak to God.
But contemplative prayer is a practice
of sitting for some period of time.
And the express purpose of that time is to be quiet
and is to sort of listen to yourself,
to hear your own mind and thoughts,
and to let those things go in non-judgmental
and in non-captivating ways,
and I mean that literally,
ways that don’t let those thoughts take you captive,
and to return to a centering understanding of who God is.
Sometimes that’s the name of God.
Sometimes that is a scripture or a passage.
But what that enables for maybe at the beginning,
you try this for 10 minutes or maybe even five minutes,
is it creates and carves out a moment in your day
in which you must struggle,
and I think for many of us,
a set period of time that is silent is a struggle
in which we are alone with ourself and God.
And that is a form of communing with God.
That’s a form of prayer.
And though you’re not saying anything,
and though your mind is racing
and there’s lots of things happening within you,
contemplative prayer gives you an opportunity to slow down,
to recognize and be reminded
of your connection to a living God.
And you might be shocked,
maybe that first day’s uncomfortable,
maybe the first week is hard.
You might be shocked in a regular practice
of something like contemplative prayer,
how quickly it becomes a source of great joy and vibrancy,
because you’re reminded in that time of prayer
of the God who loves you and who calls you by name.
And this is just one example,
Clint, of a form of prayer that doesn’t rely upon words. Yeah, and it’s a loaded word in our day and age,
but the closest equivalent might be meditation,
the idea that you are taking a moment
to be silent,
to be quiet,
to listen,
not only externally for the voice of God, but internally.
Where am I?
What am I working on?
What am I struggling with?
Are there grudges that I’ve not let go of?
Are there people that I’ve judged?
Are there relationships that are strained
that may need some attention?
And the place to start with all of those things is prayer.
And Michael,
I suspect that the average Presbyterian,
at least,
probably practices their prayer life
sort of loosely.
And what I mean by that is not an insult,
but it’s prayer in the car as I drive somewhere.
It’s prayer as I see someone at the store
and I remember that their mother is in the hospital,
and so I mention that in prayer.
And I think what a contemplative discipline does for us
is that it adds to that this intentional time
where I say I’m going to consciously try to unplug
from all the noise in my life,
from the phone, from the TV,
from the radio, from the computer,
the news, whatever it is, I’m going to try and have this quiet moment,
this bubble for just a few minutes even,
where I can listen for God’s voice beyond the noise
that fills up so much of our experience.
And I suspect that many of us don’t do that well, Michael.
I’ll certainly be one to confess
that I do not do that very well.
That does not come naturally to me
and I admire people for whom it does,
but that’s a struggle for myself
and I suspect for many of us. Yeah, I think that this is a really rich place for prayer,
especially if you feel handicapped by this idea
that there are words that you should pray to God
or a certain way that you would like to pray
that you feel like you don’t measure up to.
I think Contemplative Prayer is a place
where many of us can find deep meaning.
And I might encourage you to look up someone like Richard Rohr
who has some things on that.
I think maybe even more helpfully,
Richard Rohr is part of a group
called the Contemplative Action Society. Center, I think. No, center.
And they have a daily email blast
that’s easy to sign up for
and they have some great primers available
through their websites that they recommend.
You know, I would also say,
Clint, I do think that there’s not just the practice
of silence and contemplative prayer.
There’s also some of the prayers
that have been handed down through the history of the church
and one of those that comes to mind for me
is the Jesus Prayer.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.
That’s a simple phrase, in some ways,
deceptively simple.
And yet,
throughout time,
Christians have memorized some prayers
that they’ve allowed to live in their subconscious.
Sort of like as a child,
when you get captivated by a character in a book
or you allow your imagination to go into a fantasy world,
how that often lives its way out into your life.
There’s an ancient Christian practice of putting prayers,
simple, one sentence prayers to memory
and to returning to that over and over again so that one,
you find yourself in suddenly a moment
of anxiety or a moment of struggle.
You find yourself repeating, Lord Jesus Christ,
have mercy on me,
a sinner, a prayer which both affirms the lordship of Jesus Christ
but also is honest about our need for forgiveness.
How often in a day could we be reminded
of our need for humility and to return to a savior
who does want to forgive our shortcomings?
If you are someone who maybe doesn’t find it possible
or easy at this moment in your life
to carve out that time for silence,
maybe this is an opportunity
for you to put to memory that prayer
or a psalm, maybe a scripture,
maybe it’s the Lord’s Prayer
that you’re gonna commit to return to regularly.
But with the idea being that that prayer
isn’t something just outside you
but something that you want to work into
your own imagination, to your own life
so that it sort of becomes a part of who you are
and your daily existence. I think that’s good,
Michael.
I think we have a rich heritage in the church
that we can take advantage of.
I would just point out some of the prayers
that are both simple and beautiful
by men like Saint Francis or Saint Anselm.
If you’re not familiar with those prayers, they’re easily accessible.
You can find, I think, inspiring words
and use them not only as prayers
but as a guide of how to live out a day at a time.
And I think one of the things
that we don’t often attribute to quote unquote prayer
is the simple reflection on something
that either we need to work on
or that we want to incorporate.
So say that you wake up on a day
and the word that comes to you
in your moment of prayer is gratitude.
And the reflection throughout the day
of what does gratitude look like in this moment.
Lord, teach me gratitude.
Show me how to be grateful.
Show me how gratitude combats selfishness and materialism
and all of the things
that I might be prone to struggle with.
How is it that I can use that word,
that one simple word,
as a reflective contemplative prayer
that really could have impact on me throughout the day?
And I think something that simple,
Michael, is can be a game changer for people.
And as we seek to do that,
and really what we’re trying to do in those moments,
I think is not simply live by default,
but to carve out these moments for God
to show Himself to us
and for us to be aware of that presence
as we talked about last week in our daily life,
which is I think ultimately the invitation
that prayer offers us. I think what you’re already beginning to hear
is how varied the Christian’s prayer life can and should be.
That there’s not one way to pray that is appropriate.
There’s not one time to pray.
There’s not one posture to pray.
And I think it’s shocking actually
when you turn to Scripture.
I’m here in Matthew chapter six,
where Jesus teaches the disciples to pray.
I think we might be surprised to find out
that when Jesus teaches the disciples to pray,
He’s teaching them that their prayer should be simple.
Jesus says in verse seven,
“When you are praying,
do not heap up empty phrases
“as the Gentiles do,
for they think that they will be heard
“because of their many words.
“Do not be like them,
for your Father knows what you need
“before you ask Him.”
How often do we come to prayer
so that we can name to God the concerns that we have,
the needs that God already knows that we have?
Jesus is saying here,
“You don’t need to heap words upon words.
“You don’t need to be eloquent.
“You don’t need your prayers to be perfect.”
Whatever you think that means.
No, your Father knows that you need them.
He already loves you.
And so when He teaches us the Lord’s prayer prayer
that most of us memorized at some point in our life,
we think of that as maybe the bare minimum prayer.
Jesus is teaching that as the whole prayer.
This is all you need to pray is to confess your need
for God to be in your life,
to give glory to God for His presence.
These simple things are all that we need to do.
And a prayer life should be varied.
It should be one that we can pick up
when we get into the car
and we’re driving to the grocery store.
It should be something that we turn to
in a moment where we recognize
that thing that I said was sinful.
It was wrong.
It violated a relationship
or it was not bringing glory to God.
And it should drive us to a moment of confession to God.
We should be able to,
as Christians, I think,
slip into the many different kinds of prayer
depending upon the moment that we’re in.
Because each of those moments are opportunities
to be aware of God’s presence in our life.
And fundamentally,
as you said, Clint, that’s what we’re speaking about today,
is prayer is one of the Christian practices
to be reminded of God’s work
both in our private lives
but also our lives as a community of faith. Absolutely.
Prayer should be employed at every turn that we’re able to.
And also,
Michael, I think I would even go so far
as to suggest that prayer should be shared.
And I don’t necessarily mean
that you grab the random person and say,
“I’d like to pray with you.”
Not everybody’s going to be comfortable with that on either side,
and maybe nor should they be.
But I am always inspired and humbled when I meet someone.
And in the course of conversation,
they say, “You know,
Pastor Clint,
I pray for you nearly every day.”
Or, “I pray for you every week.
“You are in my prayers.”
And we all have a temptation to say that kind of thing.
You know, like, “I’ll be praying for you.”
And then it may or may not happen.
But when I encounter someone
who says that, and I know that that’s happening,
the encouragement that I take from that
of knowing that there are people out there
who are covering me in prayer
because I know how much I need the help,
right?
And so it is an inspiring thing.
And I think many of us have experienced the same thing
with health concerns or in moments where someone said,
“Hey, we’ll be praying for you.”
Or, “Is it okay if I’m praying for you?”
Or, “Hey, I just wanted you to know
“that I prayed for you last week.”
And those aren’t comfortable conversations for all of us.
But as we grow in prayer,
the opportunity to encourage others,
not with a showy,
“Hey, let me pray for you,”
and didn’t tell you all the words I know.
No,
just,
“Hey,
I sent you a note saying,
“Hey, prayed for you this week,
“wanted you to know I was thinking about you.”
And those are wonderful gifts that we give one another
as we live out prayer.
And I find, Michael, that in the seasons of my life
where I feel engaged in prayer,
that there’s a sense in which I learn to trust it.
I can approach those moments of reflection and quiet
without worrying about what am I going to pray with?
What am I going to pray about today?
What do I bring with me?
And I more and more trust
that I will find something there that I need.
I don’t need my suitcase.
What I need is already there.
And I just need to be quiet long enough
to let God show me what that is.
And I think as we begin to trust that process,
in a strange way,
it actually gets easier.
You know,
I have a theory that many of us avoid prayer
based on two fears.
One is the fear that we won’t find anything there.
And two is the fear that we will.
And it won’t be what we want, right?
There is always a sense in which some part of our spirit
knows that God is interested in things
we don’t want God to be interested in.
And I think prayer exposes both of those fears
and in a way that is ultimately helpful,
but scary at first. Yeah,
gotta be honest.
We’re walking ground here.
That’s pretty tender for me,
Clint, just in the sense,
I’ve always wanted to be better at praying for others.
I’ve always wanted that to be a larger part
of my spiritual practice.
And I would confess it’s probably a source of,
one of the larger sources of guilt
that I’ve had in my own faith and discipleship.
But I’ll tell you this,
prayer for me has become far more natural.
And I think I’ve become far more gracious
with myself in that because I’ve discovered
that the more deep and authentic relationships
that I have with other people,
the more naturally prayer comes for those people.
And I think that makes sense in hindsight.
I would have never reasoned my way into it.
But what I’ve experienced is in the same way
that you naturally talk to others
about the people in your life,
your close friends, your family, right?
Those relationships that you have with people
are deeply meaningful for you.
So you naturally find yourself
talking with other people about them.
Well, how’s Aunt Sue doing?
Aunt Sue’s doing great.
She did go to the doctor and she’s having some struggles.
And so we’re thinking of her and trying to help.
That’s a natural thing to do
when you have a deep relationship with Aunt Sue.
When you have a deep relationship with other Christians,
when you have a deep connection to a church family
and someone gets that diagnosis or someone has a baby
or there’s a great graduation,
a season, a celebration.
Do you know how natural it is to celebrate with them
for your heart to be broken with them?
And as part of that,
you will naturally turn to God
and say, “Lord, be with them.
“Might they know your presence in this season.”
I think that so many of us, Clint,
do come to prayer with this sort of feeling of lack.
I don’t know what I’m going to say to God about this thing
that I know is deeply hurtful or deeply joyful.
And I don’t know what to say to God about it.
Well, friends, the good news is
I don’t think God’s looking for you to say the right thing.
It’s not a test you need to pass.
If you have a deep and meaningful connection
with your brothers and sisters in Christ
with other people in your life,
then that prayer will naturally come
because from that relationship,
you will bring that with you
in your relationship and conversation with God.
And it’s not about what you’re going to say.
It’s merely about letting those two things
co-mingle in your life. Yeah, so if you can imagine that someone you admire,
a musician,
an artist,
an athlete, a politician, it doesn’t matter, but imagine that there is someone
that you admire in your life and that you would go
if you had the opportunity to meet,
you would take advantage of that.
And then imagine upon meeting them,
they said,
okay,
let’s sit down and talk.
Just the two of us,
this person that you would go see
with thousands of others.
And they simply said,
no,
here’s some,
let’s have a moment where you and I get to talk.
What do you want to talk about?
I mean,
imagine the gift that would be,
and imagine that that’s the gift on offer to us
at any moment in prayer.
And I think to the extent that we can remember
that prayer is first and foremost, invitation.
It’s, yes, it takes some discipline.
Yes, it takes some work.
Yes, it takes some honesty.
And yes, it takes some courage.
But beyond all that, prayer is invitation,
that a gracious God has given us to say,
I want to know you.
I want you to know me.
I want us to have a relationship with one another.
And I am concerned and I care about what’s in your life,
what’s in your heart,
what’s going on in your world.
And I read a story one time where a pastor wrote
in his daily calendar prayer,
and he really struggled to keep that 7 a.m.
to 7.30 prayer.
And then he started,
instead,
he changed the title,
and daily he would write, “Talk with God.”
Time with God,
meeting with God.
And he said it changed for him the idea
that instead of doing a thing,
he was meeting with God,
meeting with a God.
A person, a being.
And for him, it helped a great deal.
And I think maybe reframing what we’re trying to do
when we come to prayer is helpful. You know, that makes me think,
Clint, of conversations I’ve had with many children,
my own included,
as they struggle to conceive of prayer.
You mean, Dad, that we need to talk to an invisible person?
That, you know, it doesn’t feel right.
There’s not another area of our life
where we encourage other people to speak to the invisible.
And, you know, I think that is the intrinsic,
both beauty and struggle of prayer,
is that when Jesus invites us to pray our Father,
we’re being invited into a relationship
that is beyond our ability to perceive in other,
in ways that are unrivaled
in really any other area of our life.
That’s what it means to practice faith,
right?
We’re now returning to the central theme
of our conversation, is that at any point
of spiritual discipleship, of continuing to grow
as men and women of faith,
we are going to have to step into unknown, uncomfortable,
uncharted places in our own souls.
And I think that returns to your point.
I do think we find in prayer both what we are looking for
and what we’re not looking for,
because there’s times in which meeting with God feels like silence.
It feels like struggle.
It feels like I don’t have words and I’ve not heard anything.
And anyone who’s tried to practice prayer
has had an experience of sitting in a moment
and walking away feeling like,
well, that was a waste of time.
And that is really the moment in which we’re invited
as Christians to reframe from prayer as a thing
that accomplishes something that we think we know
it will accomplish, to having faith in a God
who is able to use moments,
even difficult,
quiet moments
to work within us what God wants to accomplish.
And I think that’s where we need to reframe
from prayer being a thing you get a grade for.
Well, that was an A prayer,
that was a C prayer
or you got a lot out of that prayer time
where you didn’t get anything.
Reframing that to a God time,
that this was a time
in which God was able to work and I trust God.
I have faith in God.
I know that God is able to work even when I don’t understand
it, even when I quite frankly didn’t feel it.
If we can get there, Clint,
now we’re practicing faith
in a way that I think is helpful. Right, and I think in those moments,
Michael, prayer becomes less something I do
and more something I take part in.
And I think that’s a helpful frame.
So I once heard a Catholic brother,
Brother Samuel,
give a presentation on prayer.
And he said two things that I thought were helpful.
One,
he said,
he was asked what he does
when his mind wanders or if his mind wanders.
And he said, “Of course my mind wanders.”
And they asked, “Well, what do you do?”
And he said, “Well,
I try to pray my distractions.”
And here’s what he meant, simply,
if he’s in the middle of a prayer
and he begins thinking about needing to go
to the grocery store,
he would, instead of treating that as something outside the prayer,
he would bring it into the prayer.
And he said, “I may say something like,
oh God, thank you that I have the ability
to go get groceries and I’m grateful for that.”
And then it was done.
And he could get back to what he was doing
rather than something he was fighting with,
he would try to bring it in and
reframe that distraction
as now a part of the prayer.
If he’d think about someone,
he would spend a moment praying for them
and then try to return to whatever else.
And he said, it was amazing to him how often
the distractions became signposts pointing him
along the way of what became his prayer
in that moment or that day.
And the second thing he said,
I thought was very helpful, someone said,
“Well, I’ve tried to pray,
but there are just days I don’t want to.
I’m sure that never happens to you.” And he said,
“Come on, that happens to me all the time.”
And she said, “Well, what do you do
on the days you don’t wanna pray?”
And this sounds like a silly answer,
but it is deeply profound.
He said, “I pray about it.”
And the deep wisdom in that is
that we bring the part of ourself
that doesn’t know how to engage God to God to be engaged.
And I think that there’s a wonderful truth in that.
What do you do when you don’t want to pray?
I pray about that.
I pray about not wanting to pray.
God, I don’t really wanna,
I don’t wanna sit and listen to you today.
For whatever reason, I’m unhappy with you,
I’m unhappy with me, whatever it is.
I don’t wanna do that,
but I’m willing to talk to you about it.
And I think,
again, Michael, it just so broadens the way that we think about prayer
and the ways in which maybe we give God the opportunity
to interact with us.
And I think ultimately that’s helpful.
So there’s no right way to pray.
I’m sure there are some wrong ways to pray,
but you know what?
God will sort those out in our lives as well.
Whether we read a historic prayer,
whether we write our own prayer,
whether we journal prayers during the day,
whether we reflect on a single word,
whether we repeat a sentence prayer throughout the day,
they’re all good.
They all work.
God can use all of those forms of prayer.
Yes, God can use the five minute drive
to wherever you need to be.