What is Pray, Anyway?

If you are anything like me (just don't admit it), probably one of the biggest areas of your Christian life that you think you may be struggling with is "prayer."

Let's face it, a lot of us have been brought up in faiths or churches that were pretty ritualistic when it came to pray...bow in this position, close your eyes, turn off the lights, turn in this direction, turn in that direction, clear your mind of everything else, and the list goes on and on.

None of that stuff ever rang true for me. In fact, Jesus was very clear on prayer...take a quick look at what he says in Matthew 6:5-

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.

Even growing up in a Jewish home and later as a Roman Catholic, I struggled with all the formal, ritualistic prayer styles. Because I always felt that if I had something to say to God, I would just...say it.

I am reading a great book by the late Mike Yaconelli called "Messy Spirituality." In Chapter 2 of the book, Yaconelli writes this:

"A couple of years ago, my wife and I sat across the table from a woman we highly respect, a deeply spiritual lady who had profoundly impacted our lives. This woman spent most of her life resisting the noise and activity of the world to seek God in silence and solitude...

We were talking about prayer. "It's embarrassing to be sitting with you," I blurted. "You spend days, weeks, even months in prayer. I'm lucky if I spend ten minutes. Compared to you, I'm not very spiritual, I'm afraid.

Her eyes flashed with anger, caught mine, and she fired back, "Oh Mike, knock it off. First of all, you don't spend everyday with me. You don't know me at all. You are comparing something you know about yourself to what you don't know about me."

The she said gently, "You think about God all the time, right?"

"Well, sort of," I said.

"Thinking about God is being with God. Being with God is spirituality. Thinking about God is praying. So shut up with this guilt stuff; you have been praying most of your life. You are a spiritual person!"

It never occurs to us that praying could include thinking or done standing or in the shower or driving to the store, or just while you may be hanging out.

Consider this as closure to your self-perceived problem of not praying enough or in the "right way." Jesus died to give us freedom from religious rules imposed by men who are no greater in God's eyes than you or I. God just wants all of you, all the time.