by Diane Coleman

Mother Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth century mystic, tells of what God showed her:

‘I am the ground of your praying. First it is my will that you should have this. Then I make it your will, too. Then I make you ask for it, and you ask. How then should you not have what you pray for?’ (chapter 41).

There are many types of prayer and different people are drawn to pray in different ways. Some have a calling to pray for situations and people, others offer thanksgiving and praise, still others are drawn to silence. The way in which an individual prays is God’s gift to them.

Meditation puts us in touch with the inner life, study enlarges our minds, but it is supremely prayer which is our life’s work, and which is both creative and transformational in our lives. To pray is to change. Prayer is what God uses lovingly to transform us, one step at a time, into the person he created us to be. We cannot do it alone. How better to build our lives that with the expertise and power of the great architect?

When we pray, God will show us where our own desires deviate from his, and will set us free from them if we let him. Progressively he will teach us to see things from his point of view.

Prayer is the realization of the presence of God in our lives, the recognition of his presence with us, and our presence before him. This realization may lead us into one or more of the classical responses of prayer:

•    Adoration – telling God how much we love him;
•    Confession – facing up to our weakness and asking God to change us;
•    Thanksgiving – thanking God for all he has given us and continues to give;
•    Intercession – praying for other people and situations;
•    Petition – praying for our own needs.

Jesus spent much time in prayer: ‘Very early next morning he got up and went out. He went away to a remote spot and remained there in prayer.’ (Mark 1:35).
Mother Theresa says: ‘Love to pray, feel often during the day the need for prayer and take trouble to pray.’. John Wesley habitually spent two hours every day in prayer. He said: ‘God does nothing but in answer to prayer.’.

Some people are brought up in families that regularly pray together, and the children learn by example. Others have to find out for themselves what prayer is. The disciples may have prayed all their lives, yet something about the quality and depth of Jesus’ praying made them ask ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’. Prayer is a learning process and so we are encouraged to explore, to question, to make mistakes, when we ask, ‘Lord, teach us to pray’ as the disciples did.

Prayer is dangerous! Prayer changes things, including lives, and as if that were not enough, God sometimes shows us how we can be part of the answer to our own prayers – and he may lead us along pathways we do not expect, enabling us to bring his loving, healing presence in all sorts of situations.

Prayer does not need beautiful phrases or eloquent language, nor even many words. ‘In your prayers do not go babbling on like the heathen, who imagine that the more they say the more likely they are to be heard’ (Matthew 6:7). These are short prayers: ‘Lord, teach me to pray’, ‘Thank you Jesus’, ‘God, help them’, ‘Show me what to do’, ‘I’m really sorry’, ‘I love you’, ‘I want to want to pray’.

Many people who have discovered the joy, the challenge and the freedom of prayer have written about their experience to encourage us. There are also many published collections of beautiful prayers which may be used to enhance our prayer time. If you don’t have a prayer time, start with just two minutes a day and allow God to give you the desire to make it gradually longer as you get to know him in this way.

We belong to a praying community, the church. Even if you don’t pray at all (and let’s be honest, some people don’t), as members of the church we are still part of a community that prays. Prayer is not so much a one-to-one conversation, more a picking up your instrument and joining the music, even if you are not an expert musician. All musicians need practice. However you pray (or not), you can be your true and natural self before God.

Diane Coleman is a Local Preacher in the Otley and Aireborough Circuit and Warden of the Norwood Retreat Centre