Why is prayer so hard... or is it, really?

A person of faith prays. We all understand that prayer is an age old and essential part of being a person of faith.  In some religious traditions it is clearly explained that there is ‘a way’ to pray, and they explain it to you. In the Christian tradition it’s not so strait forward, although in the Orthodox, Eastern and Roman Catholic Churches it’s a bit of blend.  That means that I get asked a lot about ‘how to pray’. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, the problem of praying will persist until you let go of some pre conceived notions.
 
To the first point, prayer is essential to the relationship with God.  It is a conversation between God and you. It also matters that You and I are human, so it makes sense that our starting point is our humanness!  That point is essential to ‘praying well’ and being present to the moment, to the encounter with God. We also have an individual identity and experience in life and that will affect how each of us prays.  If we pray, we are more quickly and more likely to grow in faith and understanding.  
 
So, what is prayer and where do we begin?

• Prayer is - True communion and conversation, the central point of contact between ourselves and God. It should never involve denying the ordinariness of human life but rather we enter more fully into that conversation when we share it all. There is not ‘one way’ to pray. Thomas Merton wrote, “our knowledge of God is a knowledge of ourselves as utterly dependent on God’s saving and merciful knowledge of us.  By meditation I penetrate the inmost ground of my life, seek the full understanding of God’s will for me, of God’s mercy to me, of my absolute dependence upon God.”  He describes prayer as rejoicing in the truth that we are known and loved by God.

 

• Prayer begins - In God’s love and outreach which inspires within us the desire for truth, to live our life in a spirit of reverence and purity of heart. If we are sincere of heart and open to the Holy Spirit that guides and reveals in and through our ordinary experiences, we can and will be able to respond to God.

 
I’m such a mess, I just can’t talk to God…

• Our starting point is our humanness - We experience creation and the creator through our senses. God comes to us in ways that we can see, hear, touch, smell and experience in emotions and intellect. We are always being sought out by God, but it is we who will choose whether our relationship will be one of indifference, reasonably well attended to, or the most important relationship we have and the one from which all others are nourished. This also means that we need to come to prayer with our messiness. God doesn’t want you to hold anything back, pretend in any way or approach talking to him in any way that isn’t natural to who you are! Our prayer will be hindered to the extent that we cannot gather up all of the reality of our life into our offering to God

 

• Absent from or during prayer – You know how someone can be talking to you but you don’t really hear what they are saying?  Or sometimes, we are rambling on and on and the presence or participation of the other person is seemingly irrelevant to us?  Well, don’t do that in prayer with God. Our true self is crying out to be with God, but by being absent from prayerfulness, we are absent from God.  We would not be aware of our reluctance to pray our experiences unless we were moved by that Spirit of Truth.

 
Ok, I’m starting to understand, but…

• I just don’t feel comfortable praying ‘that way’…  Since we are all created in that same image, there will be an absolute nature to Prayer, but since we are also created as individuals there will also be a wide variety of ways within that one nature.  The fact that God is always seeking us and calling us into communion makes certain that our seeking hearts will find their rest in God through our various ways of prayer. So get to know what is best for you by discovering more about yourself!
• We have an individual identity and experience of life.  Although for all people it’s true that in God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), it is also our unique identity and experiences that constitute our story of God’s fidelity to us.  Our faith, our relationship with God is enfleshed in us and expressed through us. That is why God calls us to be authentic.  We are called to know, love and serve God which requires an authentic self-understanding, and love.  This kind of self-knowledge is not possible unless it is rooted in a relationship with God.  There can be no depth of true self-knowledge without faith.  

 
 
Final thoughts before I go pray?

• Through prayer we will grow in faith and understanding.  We will become more aware of both our giftedness and our brokenness.  Remember there are no infallible techniques of prayer that will lead to a deeper relationship with God; there is only the longing of the heart to follow. 
• Pragmatic management of the complexities of our lives will give us a certain degree of order, but it cannot lead us to the Holiness to which God has called us and for which God has made us.