One Man's Thoughts

I find that there are a great many misgivings when it comes to prayer. I grew up in the Protestant Christian suggestion so when I say ‘prayer’ this is the main influencing factor. There are so many ways that one may engage in prayer that it is difficult to know where to begin, even drawing from my background as a Protestant. For so many, it is a habit of repeating words written down by those who passed their wisdom along, countless centuries past. We think that by memorizing and repeating such words that we are truly praying and that we grow stronger because of it. For those that truly believe such, I cannot dismiss their experience. All I can say is repeating prayers written down by those who have gone before is not my experience.

Let me be clear: prayer is communication with the Almighty God, the King of Kings, Christ Jesus, The Holy Spirt, the Father–Yahweh. Someone might be wondering, does one have to communicate in a particular manner with this awesome Being? In short–no. In long–also, no. What do I mean by this? I surely do not mean anything cryptic and this is the main point of this post. This is the very reason for sharing this thought here with you. This is the purpose of my heart that I hope you, the reader, may grasp. Prayer with God is like communicating to someone you love. You might say, ‘but He is a God.” Yes, and Christ came as down in the form of a man, fully God and yet also fully man. He made the way for you and I to communicate to God as we would face to face with anyone in this life that we hold deep affection for.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that God wants you to communicate with Him. If you feel comfortable folding your hands, then do that, but it surely is not necessary. He wants your time, He wants your affection–He wants you! So how does one actually talk to God? I will give an example:

“My Love, I had a difficult day today and not everything went as I wanted it to. I wanted things to go more smoothly with this coworker, and with that family member. I tried my best. I try to be the person you want me to be but sometimes I feel that I’m just failing you everyday. I want to do things that make you happy to be my God, but sometimes I feel that I disappoint you so much that I don’t know if you are actually happy to be my God. I know that is just emotion talking, but I feel it all the same. I want to love you. I want to know you more deeply. Please, show me who you are. It is so hard some days to keep faith in a Person I cannot physically see. “I do believe, please help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). I want to love you, I want to understand. But some days I just don’t. Some days I just want to go out into the middle of the woods someplace and scream my frustration. My Love, some days I just don’t understand. I just don’t understand. Please help me to understand your love for me. I am trying. I love you. Please help me see. Amen.”

Maybe your prayer is shorter than this. Perhaps less words are used. The main point is this: you can be honest in your prayer. Let out everything you have been holding inside. Does God really want the real you? Does He want the real emotion that you’ve been holding inside away so that no one can truly see? I can tell you that He does. Yes, He really does. Prayer is talking, sharing, caressing, loving, crying, sobbing, fists clenched, hands raised, laughing out loud, shouting in hurt, speaking what is inside and letting it come out. In short, prayer is sharing intimacy with the Savior, Christ Jesus. He wants you to offer your prayer to Him. Warts and all. I know because He accepts my prayers, which are far from being fancy and learned.

Pray to Him. He’s been waiting for you to take just a step as this to connect your souls together. It might be rough. It might be messy. It might sound blasphemous. It might not sound the way it is supposed to. I encourage you though, there is no “suppose to” with God. That is something people made up to feel more uncomfortable around the people who were praying prayers that were so honest as to make themselves feel uncomfortable for their lack of honesty towards God. Pray to Him.