Of all the ways to draw more deeply into the presence of God, nothing beats prayer. Prayer is the most important of the spiritual disciplines, because it’s the primary means by which we commune with our Creator. Oswald Sanders calls it “the Christian’s vital breath and native air.”
Richard Foster notes that God, who loves us and created us, yearns for deeper intimacy with us: “Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence.” God promises the opportunity to share with him, to enjoy deep friendship, to draw endless reserves of strength from him, to receive unreserved wisdom from his hand, to tap into the creativity of the mind that created everything, and to find peace, hope, and freedom. And the key to all of these experiences is prayer.
Yet, many of us find we don’t pray well. We are easily distracted; we don’t dedicate the time to it that we think we should. We shoot quick prayers to the Lord, without ever using prayer as a way to build a lasting, sustained relationship with him. We bring our wish list to him, dump it at his feet, and go about our day, unaware of his presence and unsure if he even answered.
For years, I wanted to pray better. When I went through the process of earning my PhD at Dallas Baptist University over a decade ago, I was always struck by hearing my professors and university administrators talk about Gary Cook, then the university’s president. They always portrayed him as a man of prayer, saying that Dr. Cook always led with prayer. I admired Dr. Cook and his leadership skill set, and it resonated with me that prayer was always the leading quality about him that they admired. As I reflected on my leadership at the time, it struck me that no one I led would have described me in that way. They might have said other things about how I led, complimentary things, but not about leading with prayer. And I wanted to change that. I was convinced that prayer was not just an addition to the work of leading but rather the work itself.
After graduating from DBU, I took a brief summer sabbatical. As part of that time, I went on a spiritual retreat led by a man who lived in Colorado Springs and had become a spiritual mentor to me. During that time, my mentor introduced me to several different types of prayer and opportunities to practice them. Over time, these practices changed me, not only transforming my prayer life but also fundamentally changing me as a person. God has not only answered countless prayers in countless ways, but he has also used the process of prayer to make me more peaceful, joyful, and to help me love people better. He has also drawn me deeper into his presence, and allowed me to bring some of these other practices into the lives of those I lead.
Prayer is a relational process, and just like I have many things to learn to better love my wife, kids, and all of you, I have much more to learn about prayer. That being said, here are some of the things the Lord has taught me about prayer over the past several years:
Be consistent. Showing up every day is important. I don’t know if you’ve ever had “date night” with your husband or wife, carving out a night every week or once a month to go out together. We started doing it once the kids were all attending youth group on Wednesday nights. We found that some of our date nights were really wonderful: we had great conversation, we laughed, we enjoyed each other, and we really connected. Other times, not much happened. We just ate our tacos and were quietly glad to be together.
That’s what showing up for prayer with the Lord is like. Some days the Lord will touch your heart as you read His word. Some days, He will fill you with His love to such an extent that it brings you to tears. Occasionally, you may hear His small, still voice. But many days are just “normal” ones. Angels won’t descend from heaven on a ladder, and you’ll often go about your day feeling unchanged and like you didn’t “get” a lot out of your time with the Lord. That’s okay; it’s normal. You’re not doing it wrong, because over time, day after day, God will use your faithfulness combined with His Spirit to make you someone more. It will sneak up on you, until God brings a realization to you through your transformed response to some event that would have driven a different, less sanctified response from you, or someone you know and love will call out something new they see in you.
There are different ways to pray. I used to only pray primarily two ways: intercessory prayer, i.e., asking God for things on behalf of others, and petition, asking God for something for myself. Intercession and petition are phenomenal and biblically-prescribed, but they’re only two small facets of a robust prayer life in Jesus. When I was younger, I competed in triathlons (I’m using the term “competed” here loosely, meaning, “participating in heats against other guys my age,” not in the sense of “competency” or “ability”). As I trained through swimming, riding, running, and weight training, I discovered that my body became much stronger as I conditioned it in all of these ways, rather than focusing on only one way.
Prayer works the same way. I learned the process of lectio divina, or meditating on Scripture and praying it back to the Lord in a kind of conversation; silent prayer, the process of simply being in the presence of Jesus and abiding in Him, not really saying anything but enjoying Him; journaling, writing my prayers out. There’s adoration, thanksgiving, examen, prayers of healing, prayers of suffering, imprecatory prayer, combative prayer, and others. There are so many ways to pray, and the more we use, the stronger the Spirit becomes in us.
If you play golf, part of the game is deciding which club to use in which situation. To be a good golfer, you must practice with every club and shot type to be strong in all aspects of your game. Prayer is like that, too.
What you do with your body matters. Part of being made in the image of God is that we are embodied beings, living an embodied existence. We will one day, for a brief period, be separated from our bodies in death, only to be restored in bodily, resurrected form. Our Lord Jesus was resurrected in the body and lives in bodily, human form. What we do with our body matters in how we connect with God in prayer. How you sit, stand, kneel, walk, or lie prostrate on the floor affects your prayer posture to the Lord, and each is an appropriate position at different times. Kneeling represents desperation, humility, and submission and impacts our heart.
When we pray with our hands downward and ask God to help us let go of fear, pain, and anxiety we’re holding onto, we can actually feel these things leaving us. When we hold our hands upward and ask God to receive mercy, peace, love, and hope, we can actually feel the Lord pouring these things into us.
This interaction between spirit and body is also why fasting is so important and an expected part of our life in Christ. Fasting focuses us and aligns our hearts and minds with Christ as we experience discomfort and separate ourselves temporarily from our dependence on fleshly needs. Our bodily posture reinforces our spiritual inclinations.
Your prayer life has seasons. One of the other fallacies I previously bought into about my prayer life is that, if I was disciplined and growing in prayer, it could be mapped in a consistent upward trajectory. That’s just flat out wrong. Again, prayer is a relationship with a person, the Lord, and relationships undergo various stages. We are all emotional beings, and occasionally we’ll feel more intimate with the Lord than others. Sometimes we’ll have seasons of rich study in His Word, and sometimes it will feel a little like going through the motions. At times, we’ll experience the emotional fullness of the depth of God’s love, and sometimes we’ll feel pretty dry.
If we follow Jesus long enough, we’ll even go through what John of the Cross called the “dark night of the soul.” This is not a time of trial and suffering, which can often lead us into even deeper feelings of intimacy with the Lord. Instead, this is a time of seeming dryness. We do the things we’ve done before—show up to meet with the Lord, spend time in God’s Word, and pray diligently in all the many ways of prayer—and yet, God feels distant from us. We feel spiritually dry and parched. This season may last weeks or months. We may feel as if something is wrong with us and worry that we will never experience these feelings of intimacy again.
This is a normal season of a mature believer’s walk with the Lord. Far from being cruel, the Lord hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s still right beside us. However, He wants to use these seasons of a feeling of distance to discipline our hearts so that we won’t be looking to a system or method to cling to or become addicted to a feeling but instead continue to pursue Him and trust in Him even when He doesn’t feel close. The depth of feeling returns, yet this time reinforced by even deeper trust and surrender.
Prayer is the very best way of being and remaining in God’s presence, and we need not feel defeated or like failures in not doing it well. The Lord doesn’t seek perfection but persistence, and He abundantly rewards those who seek after Him with transformed lives and the Holy Spirit’s power.
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