What is prayer? Or to be more specific, what is Christian prayer? Prayer is a feature of many religions, which suggests that human beings have an instinctive urge to pray. But this is a blog about Christian prayer, rather than the anthropology of prayer. So what are Christians doing when they pray?
First, lets say what prayer is not. Prayer is not magic. God does not give us prayer as the key that will open a wonderful box of treasures. Prayer is not effective because I say the right words, or go through some special ritual, mentally or physically. We often speak of 'the power of prayer', but we must be careful that we're using that phrase only as shorthand for 'the power that God reveals in answer to prayer.'
Nor is prayer like producing an IOU that puts God in the position of having to answer our requests. God has made certain promises about prayer, but they are there to inspire our confidence in praying to him, not tools to manipulate him.
Prayer earns us no merit with God. God does not count up the hours that we've spent in prayer and rank us as first, second or third grade Christians. The number and length of our prayers are not what is important. Some people are naturally talkative and expressive. Others maintain a loving relationship with God, as with their family and friends, in far fewer words.
So what is prayer? Prayer is communicating with God. I say 'communicating' rather than 'talking to God' because not all prayer needs to include words. Lovers can communicate a great deal without words. Nevertheless, lovers would not remain lovers for long if they never spoke a word to each other! Prayer is a two way communication between God and his beloved children.
These articles are mostly about intercessory prayer. When Jesus taught about prayer, it was usually intercessory prayer that he described - requests made to our Father for our own or others needs. Yet he never spoke about prayer without also speaking about the attitude of the heart that should lie behind our requests. That same attitude gives rise to, and underlies, worship, silent adoration, repentence, and thanksgiving. These too are forms of prayer.
Chris and I are enjoying thinking about prayer with you Stella. We have some questions and would like to know what you think:
ReplyDelete- You have defined prayer as communicating 'with' God which implies it's a two-way thing. When we pray are we communicating 'with' God or 'to' God?
Thanks Liz. Are you expecting a response to your question, or are you communicating 'to' me? Sorry, that was rather facetious, but I do think God communicates with us in various ways in response to our prayers. It may not be in some immediate, audible sense (I think that happens very rarely.) But in time, through the Holy Spirit's witness to our spirit (Rom 8:16), through the words of scripture, through other people, through circumstances, perhaps even through dreams, God communicates with us. I'd be interested to know what do you think?
ReplyDeleteThis is fabulous. I get frustrated by people asking God for what we already have. "Lord please be with us"... He is with us, we need to thank Him and rejoice. "Thank you Lord you are with us we trust you for..." especially for events in our own lives that are often outside our control. I believe we should claim the victory of Jesus over the evil one, thank Him and rejoice.
ReplyDeleteThere are things to ask God for, for myself strength to resist temptation
for gifts to live and function in a godly manner. To stand in the gap and intercede for others who may not know God and are unable to pray for themselves.
There is a little book on Prayer by the late Bishop Alfred Stanway which was published by Acorn Press, I am sure it is out of print. I have a copy if you like to borrow it.
I am not sure how to use a blog site
Theo