Prayer Column 1: What is Prayer?
Three Sundays from now, Central Christian Church of Kettering will begin a 40-day study of Unbinding Your Heart by Martha Grace Reese. Prayer will be a integral aspect of the study, and as the Prayer Team Coordinator, I will be writing a weekly column on this important subject. At this point, you might be asking yourself a few questions. You might be asking, "Well, what is prayer, anyway, really?" Or, "How do I know if I'm praying right?" Or, "What makes Larry Merkle such an expert about prayer?" Only the last of these three questions has a simple answer: "nothing!" I am definitely not an expert on prayer, which probably brings to mind an obvious follow-up question: "Well, then why should I bother reading this column?"
If you are in fact, still reading, then we have something in common. We both want to know more about prayer. Perhaps, like me, you've wondered off and on for a long time whether or not you pray enough. Perhaps, like me, you have sometimes asked what good it does to pray. Perhaps, like me, you have a secret fear that you're not praying "right." Perhaps, like me, you're willing to do whatever you can to learn about prayer. Perhaps that even includes listening to the partially thought out musings of a fellow believer in the hope that you might glean something of use. If any of this is true, then it is my most sincere hope (and prayer!) that you might find something in my columns that helps you in some small way to have a more fulfilling prayer life.
Let's get started, then. This being the first column in the series, let's try to establish what it is that we're talking about. What is prayer? Because Google knows everything, I searched on the string "define:prayer". The first response is, "the act of communicating with a deity (especially as a petition or in adoration or contrition or thanksgiving)." Not bad, but a little sterile for our purposes. Maybe we'll come back to that one later.
Instead, let's start with the answer posted in the hallway of our church building: "Prayer is talking to God." We certainly have plenty of examples that support this definition. Every Sunday in worship, we hear a pastoral prayer, we pray the Lord's Prayer together, we hear prayers at the table, and we might hear other prayers. In each case, we hear the divine being addressed ("Hey, God, we've got something to say to you, so please listen up"), and then we hear some words directed at God.
Clearly, talking to God is an important part of prayer. But another definition I've heard is that "Prayer is listening to God." At this point I have to confess that I'm guilty of the sin of envy. I am envious of people who know with certainty that they have heard God speaking to them. Not literally -- if you have heard a disembodied voice speaking to you in the King's English telling you what to do, I believe strongly that you should at least consider sharing that fact with a medical professional. On the other hand, I have known people who were absolutely sure that through a prayerful openness to God, they had received divine guidance in their life. Personally, I have never experienced such certainty. However, there have definitely been times in my life that after much prayer, reading the scriptures and interpretation, talking with fellow believers, and paying attention to the world around me I have felt confident that I understood where God's will was leading me.
That brings me to a simple definition that incorporates both of the aspects we've identified so far: "Prayer is talking with God." As trite as it is, this definition captures what I believe is an absolutely essential aspect of prayer: the conversation is not one-sided! God loves us and wants to be in relationship with us. In our human relationships, if there is no communication, the relationship stagnates. If we do all the talking and never stop to listen, we will eventually realize that we no longer know the other person. If we never contribute to the conversation, we may eventually find ourselves wondering why the other person doesn't seem to understand us as well as they used to. Communication is essential to human relationships, and so it is with our relationship with God. Prayer is our dedicated and most reliable communication channel for the relationship.
If we consider our last definition ("Prayer is talking with God"), it matches up pretty well with the first part of our first definition ("the act of communicating with a deity"). Next week, we'll take a look at the "petition, adoration, contrition, or thanksgiving" part of Google's definition. By way of foreshadowing, my prayer of petition is that these musings might somehow help you to open your communication channel with God.
If you are in fact, still reading, then we have something in common. We both want to know more about prayer. Perhaps, like me, you've wondered off and on for a long time whether or not you pray enough. Perhaps, like me, you have sometimes asked what good it does to pray. Perhaps, like me, you have a secret fear that you're not praying "right." Perhaps, like me, you're willing to do whatever you can to learn about prayer. Perhaps that even includes listening to the partially thought out musings of a fellow believer in the hope that you might glean something of use. If any of this is true, then it is my most sincere hope (and prayer!) that you might find something in my columns that helps you in some small way to have a more fulfilling prayer life.
Let's get started, then. This being the first column in the series, let's try to establish what it is that we're talking about. What is prayer? Because Google knows everything, I searched on the string "define:prayer". The first response is, "the act of communicating with a deity (especially as a petition or in adoration or contrition or thanksgiving)." Not bad, but a little sterile for our purposes. Maybe we'll come back to that one later.
Instead, let's start with the answer posted in the hallway of our church building: "Prayer is talking to God." We certainly have plenty of examples that support this definition. Every Sunday in worship, we hear a pastoral prayer, we pray the Lord's Prayer together, we hear prayers at the table, and we might hear other prayers. In each case, we hear the divine being addressed ("Hey, God, we've got something to say to you, so please listen up"), and then we hear some words directed at God.
Clearly, talking to God is an important part of prayer. But another definition I've heard is that "Prayer is listening to God." At this point I have to confess that I'm guilty of the sin of envy. I am envious of people who know with certainty that they have heard God speaking to them. Not literally -- if you have heard a disembodied voice speaking to you in the King's English telling you what to do, I believe strongly that you should at least consider sharing that fact with a medical professional. On the other hand, I have known people who were absolutely sure that through a prayerful openness to God, they had received divine guidance in their life. Personally, I have never experienced such certainty. However, there have definitely been times in my life that after much prayer, reading the scriptures and interpretation, talking with fellow believers, and paying attention to the world around me I have felt confident that I understood where God's will was leading me.
That brings me to a simple definition that incorporates both of the aspects we've identified so far: "Prayer is talking with God." As trite as it is, this definition captures what I believe is an absolutely essential aspect of prayer: the conversation is not one-sided! God loves us and wants to be in relationship with us. In our human relationships, if there is no communication, the relationship stagnates. If we do all the talking and never stop to listen, we will eventually realize that we no longer know the other person. If we never contribute to the conversation, we may eventually find ourselves wondering why the other person doesn't seem to understand us as well as they used to. Communication is essential to human relationships, and so it is with our relationship with God. Prayer is our dedicated and most reliable communication channel for the relationship.
If we consider our last definition ("Prayer is talking with God"), it matches up pretty well with the first part of our first definition ("the act of communicating with a deity"). Next week, we'll take a look at the "petition, adoration, contrition, or thanksgiving" part of Google's definition. By way of foreshadowing, my prayer of petition is that these musings might somehow help you to open your communication channel with God.
posted by ManOfManyInterests at 3:15 PM
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