The Mystery of Prayer
It’s a weird thing. Talking to the creator of the universe, someone you can’t see, touch, taste, feel or hear in any traditional way.
These are a few of the questions I have been asked by new Christians:
· What on earth is “praying”?
· Why do we pray?
· How do you address God?
· Will I look stupid doing it?
I expect every Christian will have their own way of doing things so don’t take my word for it – ask some Christians!
What is prayer?
To quote Wikipedia “Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication. Prayer can be a form of religious practice, may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song.”
What a lot of words! But the gist and nub of it all is that praying is how we communicate with our object of worship (God).
Why do we pray?
We pray to God so we can grow our relationship with him.
It’s like when the husband and I make an effort, go out on a coffee date and just spend time talking, catching up on each others lives, our hopes our dreams, our challenges and remind ourselves of how much we love each other. Without communication our marriage would stagnate or die.
The same with our relationship with God.
How should you address God?
I like to start by saying “Hi Jesus, what is up my n*gga”. No not really. Although I have done it in the past (because I think I am funny) and then I felt like he looked at me with reproach in his eyes. So I didn’t do it again.
Basically it’s your relationship, address him however you feel is appropriate. When I was little, my mum taught me to start my prayers with “Dear Lord God”. I think this was to teach me that while chatting to him is good, I still need to remember he is quite a busy important high up type of guy – so have some respect. (I’m not sure how my mum would feel about me saying “what’s up n*gga” so I haven’t asked).
I still start a lot of my praying with Dear Lord God – it’s like my default, go-to type prayer starter. But quite often I start with “Ok God……” because I like to have serious confrontational conversations with him about why something has happened.
Conversation with God:
Kara: “Ok God, why is this thing today so hard?”
God: “Well Kara, when you did x,y and z you opened up the possibility that a, b and c would happen later. You have to live with the consequences of your own choices honey, that’s what free will is all about”
Kara: “Well that’s not fun at all”
God: “I love you”
What I’m saying here is that you can have really simple short conversations with God, you can be blunt and it really does feel like a proper conversation. It’s hard to say if it is God actively and directly putting his answer in my head, or if it is my knowledge of the bible, his character and his love for me that lets my subconscious give me his answer, but either way it is a great way to work through my problems.
Having that sort of conversation with him means I take a minute to get a “God perspective” on my day to day struggles, that I think about the deeper reasons for things and that I review why things happen. I am reconciling my knowledge of God and what happens in my life (which often seem contradictory). Through that simple day to day chat, my relationship with him grows.
I also have the deeper longer (coffee date type) prayers with him too. The type where you make time in your day to only focus on him, to thank him for the things he has given, to pray for other peoples welfare, to ask him for guidance on something specific, to try to understand what he wants you to focus your energy on etc.
Both are important. Imagine if I only had the coffee dates with the husband and never spoke to him otherwise. Living with him would be AWKWARD. But imagine we never did the coffee dates. Our lives together would only be trivial and we would miss out on deeper connection. Makes sense, right?
Will I look stupid praying?
Yes, probably, maybe, not necessarily, I’m not sure. It’s one of those "pick your time and place" things, and adjust your prayer style to suit your surroundings and the comfort levels of the people around you.
I’m sure we have all seen or heard someone pray and they did look stupid! That was probably more because their type of prayer was inappropriate for the situation rather than the fact that praying makes everyone look stupid.
For example: I am out for a nice dinner at an expensive restaurant and I want to pray before eating (aka say grace). Do I;
a. Stand up, hold my arms in the air and start singing and crying and wailing my prayer to God?
b. Shut my eyes and start speaking gibberish (how speaking in tongues*1 looks to outsiders) really loudly for 30 minutes?
c. Insist that the whole restaurant closes their eyes and respects me?
d. Quietly shut my eyes, say a short grace that only myself and maybe my table companions can hear and then get on with my (hopefully) amazing meal?
I am hoping that d. is the obvious answer here. But when I am alone and I am going through some horrible life-changing things and I really need to express my emotions in prayer, it is perfectly acceptable to do a.
Of course there may be moments when looking stupid is just going to happen and you are aware its going to happen but you do it anyway.
If a work mate asks me to pray for them because they are going through a tough time I will do it. In public, in front of people, I care not. Showing them that I support them and that they can reach out to God is more important than the fact other people might think I am a nutter.
And yes this has happened to me with a non-Christian work mate asking for prayer as he needed to feel like someone supernatural cared about him. And yes I prayed. And yes other non-Christian workmates noticed. BUT the one workmate who brought it up later said she thought it was really lovely that I would pray for him and care for him in his rough patch. So I may have looked dumb*2, but I also showed a non-Christian that yes Gods people do care about him.
So pray, talk to the creator of the universe, don't call him n*gga, but don't be afraid to just chat to him. He loves us.
KG
*1 If speaking in tongues is unfamiliar please see my Christianese definitions tab on this blog.
*2 Also I look dumb heaps at work, at home, in my social life, in my private life…. So I am getting used to it anyway.
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