How do you Keep Prayer Working?

 We’ve all felt this at one time or another. Maybe it was when you tried prayer at a key moment in the past and your results were meager. Perhaps prayer has always felt more like a Rubik’s Cube than an open door to God. Maybe you’ve been worn down by years of spiritual pursuit that have only produced feelings of boredom, lacking power, and your expectation has all but vanished.

 I understand.

 The Open Secret

When my friend asked so earnestly, I felt compassion — the key to unlocking prayer is like a secret hidden in plain sight. Most of us stumble our way through prayer because we see it as a required spiritual discipline rather than a relationship-building commitment. If you want to break free from the legalism but don’t want to punt on prayer, you must look at it through a new lens.

 Prayer is a relational commitment not the obligation of a spiritual discipline. Relationally prayer is required because it is impossible to get to know someone without talking to them. Strangely, when I keep it that simple, the heavy burden of “you must” or “you should” of prayer turns into “I’m invited” or “I get to” pray. This single shift can make all the difference. It keeps me from being a slave to a ritualistic practice that doesn’t seem to work —I’m free to converse with God.

 Authenticity Required

Once I approach God this way, I’m released from counting minutes (as if a certain amount of time is required). I trade trying to fashion the words of my prayers into perfect sounding, pastor approved masterpieces, and I take one giant step toward honesty.

 What does honesty look like in prayer?

Just like it does in all your other important relationships. It is released by saying what you think, processing how you feel, and telling God what you want?

 What I think

You are probably like me, many days your thoughts are like tangled knots of string. Authenticity requires me to talk it through with God. Unwinding one strand and then the next. This may sound like a very self-absorbed practice for prayer, but it is required for me to find honesty. As honesty greases the wheel of prayer things begin to happen.

 While the spiritual disciplined guy is trying to form the perfect sentence of prayer, I’m trying to bypass pretense and get out of the starting gates. Pretense is a relationship killer. It’s lurks around every corner coaxing me to take cover and hide. Pretense steals my honest words and tempts me to dress up for God.

 What I feel

The longer I live, the more I see that my life is mostly about responding to shifts in emotional states, either mine or the others that live around me. I may not like that fact — but it’s true. Humanity is a race constantly moved about by our feelings. Therefore, my feelings are highly relevant to authentic conversation with God. I don’t camp on my feeling but neither do I ignore them. Again, that is just pretending, and It doesn’t work. So, not only is prayer for telling God what I think, but it is for processing how I feel.

 What I want

This is not a question that God avoids. In fact, he includes it in the prayer ecosystem on purpose. He leans toward your answer. Do not doubt that this is true. You need look no further than the conversations Jesus had with those in need. He may have known what they needed, but he required them to say it. He walked right to the center of their need and asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”

 We shouldn’t be surprised by this. Isn’t this the way most of us parent? Aren’t we susceptible to the desires of our children? But we want them to own up to their desires. The size of this thought when applied to prayer is so gigantic that once we consider it, we either back down, too intimidated by the size of it, or our vision of prayer changes forever.

 What I think, what I feel, and what I want — these are not the only doors to open to keep me moving forward with God, but they are a good start. They will keep me praying in a way that engages heart and steers away from pretending.

 To every frustrated heart on planet earth God makes an invitation that is simple — Come and know me better.