Lesson 9: Following Jesus as Lord

How should I pray? It's an important, almost universal question, and spiritual guides offer a wide variety of answers.

Some emphasize simple, heartfelt prayer as the most authentic and valuable form of talking with God. After all, how can archaic words like "thee" and "thine" help us sincerely pray?

Others invite us to join the global, historic church by using structured, liturgical prayers, often praying the same prayer daily or weekly. They might ask, "How can spontaneous prayer appropriately address our Majestic, Holy, Sovereign God?"

Instead of justifying our pre-existing preferences, or recommending a mystical exploration of woo-woo prayers, we want to explore the paradox of prayer.

God has spoken to us, but how should we respond?

To develop authentic, heart-to-heart communion with God through both spontaneous and structured prayer, recognizing that the form matters less than the heart behind our prayers.

How do you pray?

Ever since I first met God in fifth grade, my default approach to prayer is to pray about anything and everything in my life as it comes to mind. Especially when I feel anxious about some situation, I often turn that anxiety into a prayer. As Philippians 4:6 says (an early memory verse!), "Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

However, it wasn't until I started participating in Rhodes Christian Fellowship at Rhodes College that I truly learned to pray—and to my surprise, it didn't happen by myself. While I had often prayed at church and in Christian fellowship groups, I don't know how often I had spent extended time praying with a small group of friends.

But at Rhodes, some of the other Christians invited me to join them for extended prayer meetings. We would find an empty hallway, sit on the hard tile floors in a circle, and take turns praying out loud for thirty minutes or even an hour. As I absorbed the prayers of others into my heart, I developed a richer, fuller language for talking to God.

Around the same time, I joined a Presbyterian church that featured a traditional, liturgical service. In all the transitions of college, I felt grounded to feel the unified voices of everyone earnestly repeating the same prayer with the same faith. When our prayers reverberated against the walls, through the pews, and into my bones, it seemed like their faith became my faith.

So, while most resources I've read on prayer talk about how we, as individuals, can learn to pray, my experience has been that praying with others—whether informally in an empty hallway, or formally in a structured church service—is what has helped me learn how to pray.

The Freedom and Limits of Spontaneous Prayers

In my more intense days of trying to earn God's approval (or extra help), I had a weekly prayer list, with specific people to pray for every day of the week. Going through the complete list could take twenty minutes a day, and I would add to it whenever I promised to pray for someone. But one day I looked at my list and felt exhausted to the point of anger. Instead of feeling a deeper love for God and others, I felt resentful, bitter, and even angry at how much I'd given to these prayers. It was like I had put hundreds of dollars into a broken vending machine and gotten nothing back.

Now, as a recovering legalist, I find myself most drawn to spontaneous prayer - from short 'breath prayers' like "God, I need you" or "God, I love you" to conversational prayer as I drive around the suburbs. Some of my sweetest, most intense times of connection to God have come as I listen to worship music in the car and pour out my heart to God.

Still, there are ways that spontaneous prayer can distract me from God, or even stunt my spiritual growth.

The main thing I've noticed is that this kind of prayer can be a 'spiritual' way of venting. I'm "getting it off my chest", and I can trust that Jesus cares about my frustrations and struggles, but that's it. It's actually easy to be worrying about something, while telling myself that I am praying.

At a deeper level, when my focus is on telling God how I feel, I can get caught up in being authentic about sharing my heart. The blind spot? I'm not humbly taking the time to listen to what God wants to say about my situation. Transformative prayer involves receiving the love of the Holy Spirit, opening myself to his guidance, and redirecting my life to honor Jesus.

Second, this approach to prayer can reveal an entitled or transactional approach to God. Instead of God being my priority, when I default to only having time for spontaneous prayer, it communicates that I want God's help, but not his friendship. Because it's spontaneous, it only happens when I feel like it. But if I only pray when I feel like it, then I'm not necessarily putting myself in a place of surrender, where I talk to God because he is worthy of my reverence and obedience.

Most of all, I think that spontaneous prayer can sometimes become shallow prayer. I'm distracted by my emails, what's happening in traffic, what I'm having for dinner, and a million other things.

Instead of taking a more disciplined approach to quiet my heart, focus my attention on God, and humbly bring all of myself into his loving presence, I'm just winging it. The absence of structure, in the name of authenticity, becomes an excuse for neglecting God.

The Strength and Stability of Structured Prayers

During the many years I attended Presbyterian churches, I was introduced to the Puritan prayerbook The Valley of Vision. It's not for the faint of heart; some of the language is perhaps overly harsh and self-condemning. Still, I credit these prayers for teaching me to solemnly approach God in all his holiness, splendor, and majesty. Like a good blue cheese, the pungent aroma of these prayers wakes me up from the bland, everyday smells of our overly casual culture.

Spontaneous prayers come and go like the grass of the field, but some liturgical prayer traditions have lasted for millennia. If you already practice these rhythms of grace, then you know how these time-tested prayers are like sheltering in the shade of a great oak tree. They continue to be prayed because, like the Psalms, God's people continue to find spiritual nourishment in the words of the saints.

But I understand why people resist liturgical prayers. The most common reason I hear? People who grew up in liturgical traditions as children usually found them boring, meaningless, and empty. To find a contemporary church with emotionally resonant music, relevant sermons, and excellent children's programming is a refreshing, eye-opening experience.

And, like my weekly prayer list, reading someone else's prayers can start feeling like checking a box. It turns prayer into an accomplishment rather than an encounter; we've engaged with a system rather than a Person. In the worst-case scenario, we become like those whom Jesus criticized for heaping up empty words to be praised by others.

I've also experienced that it's easy to read the words with my mind while my heart is guarded and closed to God. Liturgical prayers might alleviate our guilt ("at least I said my prayers"), but our consciences know that we haven't vulnerably bared our souls to our Good Father.

When we read someone else's words, they might connect with the state of our hearts. Sometimes this is a gift, stretching our imaginations of what it could be like to approach God with greater maturity. But at other times, it leads to a disconnection. The refined, scripted piety of a 'model prayer' can make it easier to 'pray' even as we bypass bringing our struggles to Jesus.

More subtly, for some people, the order, routine, and discipline of liturgical prayers are appealing because they reinforce the need to maintain control. But of course, there are no ways to control God — the Holy Spirit blows wherever he wishes. Yet by his grace, sometimes he uses fixed prayers to do an unpredictable work in our hearts!

So what kind of prayer is better?

Jesus gives us the secret to faithful prayer: It starts with "Our Father." As he prayed with his disciples, he was experiencing, and modeling for them, the non-negotiable importance of prayer functioning as a means of growing our relationship with God.

God invites us to pray either way. We can "pour out our hearts before him" (Psalm 62:8) and pray the Lord's prayer with our children every night at bedtime (Matthew 6:9-13). We can pray regularly (Acts 3:1) and gather for urgent, immediate situations (Acts 4:23-31).

The reason we bounce back and forth between the format of prayer is because we often confuse the method of prayer and the honesty of our relationships with God. The challenge isn't choosing between structure and spontaneity, but discerning when either becomes a substitute for true presence with God.

This is exactly what Isaiah diagnosed when he prophesied, "This people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me" (Isaiah 29:13). God isn't after more prayer; he's after more of our hearts! He doesn't care about elaborate techniques; he prefers broken-hearted communion.

Ultimately, the form of our prayers matters far less than the heart behind them. When the format becomes a means of spiritual avoidance, then we need to bring that struggle to God. "God, there are some issues I don't want to talk to you about. Would you help me to experience your love and grace, so I can be more honest about the problems I'm facing?"

As a recovering perfectionist (I'm recovering from a lot of struggles), I confess that we'll never 'get it right.' But that isn't even an applicable metric. If my kids were worried about 'getting it right' when they talked to me, something has gone very wrong.

Instead, as we grow in confidence that our Triune God is constantly, unconditionally, joyfully loving us, we can enjoy the freedom of coming before him with either ancient prayers or immediate cries of worship. Every healthy relationship is a combination of intentionality ("Let's get together this weekend") and relaxed familiarity ("Thought I'd give you a call").

Finally, we remember that our relationship with God isn't designed to remove us from the world as we burrow into our prayer closets. Jesus told us, "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing" (John 5:19). As we increasingly identify as beloved children of God, and deepen a living, heart-to-heart connection with God, we will naturally find ourselves eagerly participating in God's mission.

Where Are You?

When we are running and attempting to hide from God, he reveals his uncommon pursuit. Filled with grace and kindness, he asks us, "Where are you?" (see Genesis 3:9). When we were in darkness, Jesus came to reveal the light and life of God. When we were spiritual orphans, the Holy Spirit filled our hearts, so that we might use the intimate, familial address of "Abba, Father" with our Creator.

So, before we pray, it can help to search the state of our hearts. What are we feeling? As we become aware of the complex and sometimes scary emotions, we can bring that deeper self-awareness into God's caring presence. If we are afraid of God, we can tentatively address that concern with him, too.

We can also prepare our hearts. Instead of asking, "Am I doing this right?" we evaluate our intent: "Do I want to commune with God?"

As beloved children, we are free to use any approach to God that aligns with God's word. Whether you choose to pray the Psalms, meditate on Scripture, silently contemplate God, spontaneously talk to God, or write a prayer journal, the goal is to find authentic pathways to growing close to God.

Throughout our lives, we will likely go through different seasons of prayer. We can only pray with the help of others. In other seasons, we might write poetry to express our love for the Lord. Sometimes we need to break free from routine; other times, we need a routine to ground us. The different forms aren't "better" or "worse" because the only reason they matter is if they help us respond to God.

C.S. Lewis offers his habitual wisdom on prayer in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer:

Meantime, however, we want to know not how we should pray if we were perfect but how we should pray being as we now are. > > And if my idea of prayer as 'unveiling' is accepted, we have already answered this. It is no use to ask God with factitious earnestness for A when our whole mind is in reality filled with the desire for B. We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us. > > Even an intimate human friend is ill-used if we talk to him about one thing while our mind is really on another, and even a human friend will soon become aware when we are doing so.

Father, I come to you now not to perform spiritual exercises but to meet with you. Help me recognize how I try to keep you at a distance.

Jesus, thank you for modeling perfect communion with the Father. Teach me to pray like you prayed.

Holy Spirit, reveal the places where my prayer life has become empty or merely expressive. Fill my life with your love, that I might love you with my whole heart!