What Prayer IS. (the sequal)

[D. Allan]

This is the sequel to "What Prayer is Not."

Your Mission...Should You Decide to Accept It, Part II

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Comments (0)

In my last column I talked about what prayer is not. Now I want to identify what prayer is.

1. Prayer begins with admitting that you don’t know how to pray. In the words of the apostle Paul, "We do not know how to pray as we ought." Paul then offers a miracle. He says that God knows you don't know how to pray and while you are stuttering and stammering, looking for appropriate words, God intercedes right in the midst of it and God prays on your behalf. What a deal! You admit that you don’t know how to pray and God steps in to pray for you. Every prayer should begin with this, "God you know me, and you know I don’t know how to pray."

2. God already knows what you need before you pray. It never made sense to me to tell God in prayer what I was sure God already knew. I can’t imagine saying, "Hello God, sister Mary is sick and in the hospital" and then God saying, "Whoa, I didn’t know that, which hospital?" God already knows what we need before we ask.

3. If you are talking with someone who already knows the truth, you had best stay close to the facts. In conversation with God, make sure to be honest to God after being honest yourself.

4. People often get confused about the need to use fancy words when they pray. The most effective prayers often begin with "Oh my God, Oh my God, a child died. Oh my God, my sister has cancer. Oh my God, more people have been killed in Iraq. Oh my God, people have been killed in a tornado in Alabama." Simply blurting out the truth is the first step in prayer and sure enough, you are on your way.

5. The author Anne Lamott recommends only two prayers: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Listen again to the apostle Paul: If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. God does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs and our aching groans.

I find that God worthy of worship and worthy of praise.

Peace to you on your Lenten path,

Dr. Richard A. Wing

Senior Minister