A Prayer Problem

Prayer is talking with a person, who happens to be God.

Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash

If my definition of prayer is accurate, then most prayers are not really prayers at all.

Now I get it if, at first blush, you find my definition sounding possibly sacrilegious. It may be misunderstood that I am bringing God down to my level as a human being.

What I mean is that God has a personality and more to the point, he wants to be known for who he really is and not a nebulous concept. We are the same way. We want others to treat us, not as things or annoyances or as irrelevant, but for who we really are. That’s why our names are important. God feels the same way we do and we, in a sense, feel in a way similar to the way he does. This means we can often understand God better for who he is by seeing what it is he created in us that we really value.

For one thing, we are linked to our own names in very deep ways. With this insight, we can study the names God gives to himself and learn a great deal about his personality this way.

We also have in common with God, more than we do with other living things like plants and animals, the ability to communicate using words as mental symbols. In fact, just like God, we too create with our words. It’s just that God creates from nothing to everything, and man creates on top of God’s creation to something else or something more.

Now to the prayer problem.

Take your last prayer and imagine sitting down with someone you respect and delivering it as a list of talking points. Then imagine that once you have finished talking, you get up and walk away not giving the other person an opportunity to say what is on his mind. Do you believe your relationship will grow deeper? How can it? It’s all about you.

“But wait just a minute,” you push back fairly, “God doesn’t talk with me the way other people do – and I don’t want to play chess by moving both sides of the board pretending I am playing with a secret friend.”

But first, let’s ask him to do so by praying our request.

Dear Lord, as we open your Word, please speak through it, and help us manage our lives today. Amen.

Photo by Samuel Martins on Unsplash

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