Real Prayer vs. Religious Prayer

We have made prayer part of religion, and now most of our people don't know how to do it, and it has little impact in their life. 'Praying for you' has become a nice little religious cliche' that might mean someone is praying for you, or might not. It means 'we care, and if we think of it we'll pray for you' rather than 'we will consistently intercede with the Father for His will to be done in ______' (not true for everyone, but for most).

Prayer has been minimalized and marginalized. We have found a way to package and process prayer, thus hyper- and pseudo-intellectualizing what should be a terribly simple thing: talking with God. (After all, a Christian does know Him, right? And people we know we usually don't have trouble talking with, right? And if we do, it's in part because of some problem in the relationship, and since God is perfect and doesn't create any problems in our relationship, talking with Him should be easier than talking with even your best friend, right?)

If you called a 'prayer meeting' most wouldn't come, some because they wouldn't know what to do. They would want to know 'what are the rules?' Told that the only rules were that there were none, they wouldn't know what to do.

People think of prayer in much the way as they do a 'program' or a religious rite. Their practice of it is routine but shallow and relatively powerless. This isn't intentional on their part, but praying to God is, to many people, a mildly comforting release, a magic-genie-list of requests, and since God occassionally comes through with 1 or 2 of the things on their list, they'll keep trying it. It's just part of the rest of the relatively powerless religious grid. I know that sounds harsh, but consider the prayer lives around you. Consider the power or lack thereof, flowing around you.

Think about it with me: What is prayer? Communication with God. So, must we have our eyes closed and heads bowed? (Not that either are bad; they have purpose). Must we creat a 'list' first (as if God didn't hear the first time, when we made the list)? Is prayer supposed to be us telling Him what we want?

Prayer is communication with God, which should be to spiritual life as breathing is to physical life. Yet for those who want to go deeper in prayer, we have prayer classes. That's not all bad, but did anybody have to teach you how to breath?

Talking with God should be natural. It is how we enter the supernatural. More importantly, it's how the supernatural enters into us, meaning His wisdom, comfort, peace, counsel, by the Holy Spirit. (This also comes from studying the Word of God) It is not merely for the very spiritual (whatever that means). I know people who, when they have a need, make sure pastors and spiritual leaders in particular are praying for them. What? Do they have 'more direct access?' Can't anybody who knows God do this? Yes. (As a pastor, let me say I'm very glad to pray for people, but my point is that I am no more capable of powerful intercessory prayer than someone's Sunday School teacher or Godly neighbor).

Prayer is almost always man telling God what He wants. Listen, in this whole talking with God idea, WHO NEEEDS TO HEAR FROM WHOM?

Prayer is communication with God, not communication at God. And if I have any sense at all, and I meet God (and I have and do, though I'm also preaching to the man in the mirror in this entry), I'll listen more, talk less. I won't put on my figurative religious robe, I'll just communicate. That looks like this:

I share my heart with God, usually briefly (since He does know already; though at times pouring out your heart to God at length is necessary). As I do that, I state to Him what I know from Scripture is His will about a situation, if I indeed know that. Then I ask Him to speak to me. That happens by the Holy Spirit, which reminds us of all Jesus has taught, i.e., brings to our mind Scripture at the times we need it. He also gives peace, comfort and counsel. These are the things I usually need in prayer.

This goes on anytime I want it to and anytime I'm prompted to by the Spirit or others' needs. It's like a conversation, but it's a conversation on spiriutal steriods. How do the comments in a conversation go? Me. You. Me. You. You. You. Me. Me. Me. You. Me. It's sort of back and forth, sometimes more one than the other for a little while. That's conversation. There's no reason it should be any diferent in prayer, EXCEPT THAT, if I'm having a conversation with a person very knowledgable in an area I need to learn about, I listen more than I talk. Well, since we're conversing WITH GOD . . .

In short, we've sold prayer short, tucked it into our religious closet, and we pull it out to rub the magic genie, or in utter desperation. Kind of like holding your breath until you just HAVE TO breath.

Let's pray. Really pray. Say something. Then listen.