Real prayer

Prayer has become one of those things that Christians are supposed to do. But as I step back and look at it, it has become a religious term. It is one of those words we use around the Christian table, but do we really know what it means anymore? I think, like a lot of things in Christianity, we have lost most of what the word was supposed to means. So what is prayer?

My 'Out of the box answer' goes like this - When I was a kid, my brother and I used to play this game where we would say a word over and over as fast as possible until the word lost its meaning, and just became a sound our mouths were making. I think that is the way prayer has become - a Christianeze word that we talk about, but don't understand any more. I personally try never to pray. I talk to God almost all day long, but that doesn't have anything to do with 'prayer'. And I don't believe prayer is ever about changing God's mind. If that were true, I would be God of the universe, because all I have to do is pray and I can control what He does.

If He always wants our good, why do we have to 'pray' to convince Him what is good? I believe prayer is always for our transformation and changing, not His. Prayer is about changing our mind, not His mind. Prayer is so we can get in line with His general and specific will for our lives, not so we can line Him up with ours. It is our participation in His transformation of our hearts.

Prayer is really all about us. Ironically, (or is it moronically) we think that prayer exists to change God' s mind. I wonder - if that is the purpose of prayer - to change His mind - then why does the Bible say He is never changing? The Bible does talk about Abraham changing God's mind when he negotiated for Sodom and Gomorrah (what a dumb investment that was!) I don't think that was an example of what we need to do in prayer. I think that was a Jr. High version of relationship with God - He enters into our immature definitions and understandings and requests out of sheer grace, not because He is so movable by our manipulations.

We think that prayer is our pump handle so God will give us whatever we think we need. That isn't relationship with God. That is using somebody for our ends.

Garth Brooks sings a song about begging God to give him the girl of his dreams when he was young. When he runs into her at a high school football game many years later, he thanks God for the unanswered prayer. What he thought he would have died without turned out to be a blessing to live without. So who are we to decide what we need, or to tell God what we want put on our plate?

My encouragement today is don't pray. Just talk to Papa, and listen lots. And forget trying to get Him to do what you think He needs to do. Instead, open yourself up to what He wants to do in you.