This morning I’m thinking about prayer. Not a long, detailed, discussion but a few short observations.

First, I’d like to strip away much of the “insider jargon” that’s often employed, and the absurdity of statements such as this one (from Charisma Magazine): “Most Christians aren’t aware that there are several types of prayer… if you use one type when you should be using another, it won’t work. You would be applying the wrong spiritual tool to your needs or request.”

It won’t work? Seriously? God is just going to shut me out if I get the magic words wrong? As if prayer is something we can (or should) use to leverage the Almighty? As if God would say, “Well okay then, this time they followed the correct formula so I guess I have to give them what they want.”

SIMPLE: Here’s my definition of prayer: “A deliberate practice of interaction with God” (10 Life-Charged Words, pp 115-126).

Here are three illustrations from the past 24-hours that I have found helpful:

• FIRST, Rebekah and I share a short devotional reading every morning at the breakfast table. We thank God for our food and the new day, we read a short passage of scripture, we read the devotional thought that accompanies the scripture, and then we talk about the ideas, inspirations, and challenges that emerged from the readings. God is in our conversation; we feel the prompting of the Spirit; the entire experience is prayer.
• THEN, yesterday evening we enjoyed a fun ten-minute Skype “family time” with Naomi, Craig, David, and Beks. Skyping always prompts me to think about how our interface with God is just a hint of the intimacy and the glory that we will experience in eternity. At the same time, it makes me grateful that God has gifted us with the presence of Jesus through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; God is a reality more present and palpable than video, and that awareness is a form of prayer.
• FINALLY, I talk with God about my day during my morning walk. It’s free-form most of the time, scattered and out of focus. It’s like Jesus is walking at my elbow, leaning in sometimes to hear more clearly, smiling at the same thought that triggered my chuckle, putting his hand on my shoulder when I share a particular concern. That, too, is prayer.

Of course there are so many more examples, all day and every day, both by myself and in the context of community.

And none of my prayer involves the evaluation that it does or doesn’t “work”. That’s not what prayer is about. Prayer is the language of my evolving relationship with God.

In prayer – DEREK