Most people don’t receive formation in prayer. We don’t get taught how to pray and so it can be difficult to pray unless it is a structured activity. So, we can tend to look to fill the time with formal prayers and journaling. What is the difference between prayers and prayer?
Prayer isn’t just ‘caught’ it needs to be ‘taught’. Prayer is based on the Lord’s grace and so it is a gift. People can have a difficulty with a prayer time because we’re used to projects and don’t know how to sit still. We can default to prayers someone else made. Prayer is our relationship with the Lord and communicating heart to Heart with Him.
How do we do that? A good place to start is simply being available to the Lord. We don’t have to generate holy feelings or thoughts. Simply being present to He who is present to us. Being available means being ready and not preoccupied with other things. It’s simply holding space for the Lord.
From there, we surrender our ideas and agendas, understanding the Lord wants prayer more than we do because He longs for relationship with us. What does surrender mean? It’s giving up our plans and our preconceived ideas of what needs to happen. He is the initiator and is all-wise and all-loving.
In His presence, we converse with Him which entails sharing with Him and listening to Him. He can speak to our hearts by bringing certain thoughts and senses to us. He is alive and well and is a good communicator! We can ask Him for what He wants us to know and to lead us. This communion leads us to union with Him.
Practically, that can look like using the Scripture or spiritual reading as jumping off points if we stop at the points where we find our spirit particularly touched and open ourselves to more of His work of grace in those areas.
So, we start by being available to the Lord, surrendering our agendas, and then moving from the words of prayers into being attentive to grace when our hearts are moved by particular notions, concepts, and images.
Ephesians 3:14 and following.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | iHeartRadio | Email | RSS