Have you ever wanted to pray and not known how? Perhaps you haven't done that before and don't know where to start. Maybe you're used to 'churchy' prayer language and don't feel confident in using that. Sometimes even those of us who are very familiar with praying just get stuck as to how to approach a particular subject that's on our minds. A while ago I told someone that prayer is just talking to God and she echoed that back to me a few days ago. Yes, that's it - prayer is just talking to God, like talking to a friend, husband or wife, mother or child, father or cousin, work colleague or the person next to you in a queue. In one way it's nothing special; it's what we all do every day with other people. We don't need special words or phrases, or a particular tone of voice. Just say it as it is. You can even do it over coffee!
On the other hand, being able to talk to God, the creator of the universe, King of Heaven and Earth, living in glorious surroundings, attended by angels and other majestic heavenly creatures, is such a great privilege. Let's not miss out on it. God made us to live with him and, therefore, is so ready to hear us when we talk to him. After I had been reminded of the nature of prayer the other day, I went for a walk along the river to be alone with God and decided to talk to him: not use 'prayer' language, just talk to him and tell him how it is.
Sometimes we can hide God behind some sort of special way of speaking that we reserve for him, which takes away our sponteneity, even makes him feel a bit distant. It's almost as if we're writing a report for a boss, or a funding bid to a financial institution, and we have key buzz words that we know have to be included for us to be accepted. Then we can lose the initmacy of talking to the person who is right there beside us as a friend. I decided on that river-bank walk not to use the word 'pray'. When do you ever say to anyone these days, "I pray that you ...," or even "beseech"? It's just really old fashioned. To anyone else we would say, "Please will you do ...?" or "I'm desperate for such and such a thing to happen, so can you please sort it out?" or "Please can you help me with this?" Prayer is about more than just asking for things, so this is just one example and we shall look at other ways of praying in future posts, but it was so useful and refreshing spending time with God using just normal language and getting rid of all the special churchy words.
Prayer is talking to God, telling him how we feel, what we think of him, what we need, what we want, what we're grateful for, and anything else that comes to mind, just like talking to a friend.
After all, where, even in the Bible, do we see people saying, "I pray that you will ..."? Jesus, in the Lord's prayer taught us to pray without using that word. Instead he told us that we should say: Let your will be done, give us our daily bread, forgive us our sins, deliver us from evil etc. It's all very direct, not couched in polite language. We see the Israelites having the same approach in the Psalms. If they wanted something, they said it, and addressed God by name, Yahweh (maybe Jehovah or the Lord in the translation that you tend to use). I give here just a few examples. "Rise up, O Yahweh, save me, O my God!" (Psalm 3, verse 7) "Answer me when I call, O God." (Ps 4:1) "Open your ears to my words, O Yahweh. Consider my groans. Take notice of my cries for help, my King and my God." (Ps 5:1,2) "Let all those who hide themselves in you be glad." (Ps 5:11) "O Yahweh, don't speak to me harshly or punish me out of anger. Be gracious to me, O Yahweh, because I'm pining away. Heal me, O Yahweh." (Ps 6:1,2) "Make your ways known to me, O Yahweh, and teach me your paths." (Ps 25:4) "Vindicate me, O Yahweh." (Ps 28:1) "Repay the wicked for their works and evil deeds" (Ps 28:4) Of course, the Psalms are about more than asking God for things as well, but we can see how direct the writers were in stating their various requests to the one they knew by name.
In the New Testament the story is the same. For example, after Peter and John had been arrested and then released, having being threatened about not teaching in the name of Jesus, they went back to the other Christians who prayed together: "Now, Lord, note their threats but enable us, your servants, to carry on talking about you boldly. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miracles in the name of your holy servant Jesus." (Acts chapter 4, verses 29 & 30). This is pretty much everyday language. You could change a lot of the words and turn it into a carefully crafted and beautiful prayer for use in church, but it's fine as it is. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with church-style prayers; there's nothing wrong with using whatever kind of language that you feel happiest with when praying. But always remember that prayer is just talking to God, the one who is ready to hear and is right there beside you listening.
If you don't know how to pray, or don't feel that you are connecting with God as you would like, then just talk to him as you would anyone else. You could start by saying something like, "God, I want to talk to you as the real person that you are, like the friend who wants to be near me. Help me to speak my mind and my heart to you, and to listen to what you want to say back." Then tell him what you want him to hear and listen in case he would like to reply straightaway. If you don't know God personally, because you haven't yet given your life to Jesus, then you can read about how to do that here. That will dramatically change your prayer life as well. And remember to keep talking to him, whenever, about whatever.
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