Prayer, Prayer, Prayer

Recently in class we put a lot of thought and talk into prayer and since then it's been grounded quite firmly in my mind. I've looked at how I pray, how I feel during prayer, what images and emotions am I tossing around in my head during the prayer itself...this line of thinking went on and on until I came to the conclusion: stop thinking about prayer! While I'm spending so much effort and thought into what my prayer life looks like, am I not moving away from the very idea of prayer--talking to God.

"Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be" (pg 30 of my edition of Screwtape)

Prayer isn't about creating some extravagant image of God to worship in my mind or belting out an expansive and poetic speech as if I were before an audience--it's just talking to my Heavenly Father. I like to look at how Jesus prayed in Scripture. Yes, he taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer, but when I read into it I simply see Jesus praying to his Father, communicating with the One who made all things. I think prayer like faith is a personal issue--it can take whatever form fits you because God desires relationship and a relationship is all about personal communication.

When I look at John 17 and how Jesus continually prays that "they may be one as we are one"--I like to imagine this can relate to our prayer life. In prayer we can seek that "oneness", communicating to God our desire to be "one". It is in this state of "oneness" with God that I believe you can pray however you wish, if it's creating images or feelings in your head, singing hymns, reciting poetry to the King, or simply sitting in the silence as saying "I love you Lord"...I think it all works as long as that focus is on Him above. Screwtape writes to Wormwood that the goal is to divert the attention towards the self and away from God. The self and worldy distractions are where we lose that "oneness", when our relationship with Him is at risk to prostitution of the self away from our true Love.

I wonder how C.S. Lewis prayed? Yet then I think again, it doesn't matter. What matters is that my focus of prayer is simply on Him, that I'm honest in my communication with my Heavenly Father. Yes, I'm broken, selfish, and easily distracted...but Jesus prayed that we would be "one" as he and God were one. In the love of Christ, I can pull away from my self and seek the glorious "oneness" with God.