“Greater, Deeper, Truer Prayer”

           This past week has been an exercise in prayer.  When I first heard that prayer was the discipline for this week, I was ecstatic.  I was hoping to dig deeper into my own spiritual life and find out what true prayer looks like.  As I had grown, I thought, in my knowledge of doctrine and theology, I felt like it had gotten consistently more difficult to pray with the child-like faith that Jesus calls believers to in the New Testament.  Was I just overthinking this discipline, as I am often prone to do?

            According to Foster, “the discipline of prayer brings us into the deepest and highest work of the human spirit” and is “the central avenue God uses to transform us” (33).  So far, so good.  I totally believe that stuff!  Foster then goes on to say that “listening to God is the necessary prelude to intercession” (39).  Gulp.  Oops, sorry God.  I really haven’t been listening to You.

            It was with this conviction that I set two goals for my prayer life this week.  The first was to set aside small amounts of time in my day to listen for God’s guidance for my life or other people’s lives.  If a person or worry would pop into my head, I would take time and pray for them, trusting that God had led me to this thought.  The second goal was to practice “flash prayers” as I noticed the people around me.  This exercise involved being intentional as I went about my day, concentrating on other people as much as I concentrate about myself and all of the things that I have to do.

            As I began to have this quiet time with God a couple of times a day, I noticed something about myself.  Sometimes, I am an insecure pray-er.  I will attempt to listen to God, but my mind will immediately begin to fill with the most random of thoughts, steering my concentration away from the time that I was setting aside to listen for God’s will and guidance.  Frustrated with myself, I would give up and then try to come back a little while later for quiet time.  Then, the same thing would happen. 

            However, I also had the opposite happen while I was having this quiet time to listen to God.  It only occurred a couple of times out of the multiple times that I tried it, but God would sometimes put on my heart a person or a worry that I had not laid at the feet of God.  I would then sit and reflect about that person or worry in my life, asking God to take the issue into His hands. 

            The second exercise that I attempted throughout this week was the discipline of flash praying.  This worked out pretty well the first couple of days.  As I would pass people in the hall or on the sidewalk, I would really pay attention to the way that they would greet me or their body language.  I would then offer a quick prayer to God, asking Him to bring peace into the life of the person that I had just encountered.  Generally, I liked this way of prayer.  The only thing that I was confronted with when I would quickly “flash” this prayer to God was the fact that I wasn’t really taking the time to seek God’s will in the prayer.  I was reverting back to my old method of simply praying and not truly listening to God.

            More often than not this week, I wished for a monastic lifestyle, a lifestyle that was structured with work and prayer.  Foster says in his book that prayer is to be the most important aspect of one’s life.  Is it the most important aspect of mine?  Often, I would have to say that I do not uphold prayer in my day to day activities.  But, before I become too morose and hard on myself, I keep reminding myself that prayer is a learning experience, and that God does not judge me on how eloquently or well I pray.  Instead, I am to keep on persevering and taking time throughout my day to let prayer permeate – this gives me hope to continue to refine the discipline of prayer in my own life.