A pastor's personal prayer pilgrimage

From my earliest memory, prayer was a practice I used to request favors from God. In the beginning the prayer, said at bedtime "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep" had been prompted by my parents. I'm sure I had only the vaguest notion of who was being addressed, but whoever it was, He would protect me from any harm that might be lurking about in the darkness.

Like so many, I also learned a prayer to repeat at mealtimes, "God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for our food." This was an acknowledgment that God had some thing to do with the origin of the food my mother had prepared.

These childish prayers set the foundation for adolescence, when I was able to begin speaking spontaneously to God, using my own thoughts and words to tell Him about my needs. Yet these more personal prayers were conditioned by what I heard from my parents and other adults in our church.

I well remember accompanying my father to the weekly prayer meeting. Though becoming weary with the long, repetitious prayers, I did learn language and a certain prayer format. I first used these prayers in emergencies and then at more frequent intervals to tell God my expectations. All told, throughout those early years, I never conceived of prayer as anything other than an exercise in claiming from God all that I needed.

Progress

At some point in my young life, I read that "prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend,"¹ a thought that could have revolutionized my prayer journey early on had I allowed its truth to actually reach me. That the revolution did not occur probably says something about my relationship with my parents.

They did not create a climate for intimacy in our home, so I never learned to share either my dreams or burdens. I came to understand their role as providers for my own welfare and that of my four siblings; home was a safe place, but it did not provide much emotional support. I dreamed of what I wished my life could be and made plans to fulfill those dreams, but I did not divulge this inner self to anyone an early experience that later limit ed my willingness to be open and vulnerable to others or to God.

My relationship with God was similar to that with my parents. I told Him about my needs but never went into the language of intimacy. I prayed for help to resolve crises, for courage, for protection, and for the safety of my family and friends (not to mention an occasional petition for all the colporteurs and missionaries of the world).

These prayers were offered before bed, sometimes in the morning before I left my room, and regularly before confronting a difficult class or situation at school.

The prayer format I used during those years is known as Simple Prayer, the style we all use to begin our journey. Centered in self needs, it is used to petition God for health, safety, and prosperity.

In this prayer the petitioner doesn't seek to be with God for His own sake. So there is no sharing of the heart. If I had never advanced beyond Simple Prayer, my spiritual journey would have remained stunted.

Not only was more intimate prayer not modeled for me, but my religious life was also stifled by legalism, making it almost impossible to understand God's desire to have a real relationship with me. I could not open my heart to God as a friend because I saw Him as my judge, waiting to record my misdeeds. I didn't feel safe to open myself to Him.

The awakening

Only after developing an understanding of grace well into midlife and receiving assurance of my salvation did I really feel a longing to know God as a friend. Immersing myself in spiritual literature, I came to understand that building a relationship with Jesus is similar to that with an earthly friend. It requires time and effort and courage, the opening of oneself on the very deepest levels.

I participated in workshops and retreats. I learned to practice spiritual disciplines that were mostly prayer forms. These advanced me beyond the selfishness of my own prayer life to God-centered experiences of adoration and intimacy. Among the disciplines were meditation, journaling, spiritual reading, and devotional prayer, sometimes called "prayer of the heart."

With the revelation that prayer is about my relationship with Jesus came an eagerness to begin using these disciplines regularly. As I have experimented, I have found them all to be helpful in drawing closer to the heart of God.

I have come to appreciate a description of prayer by Susan Muto, "Prayer in the end is about this all-consuming love relation between God and Us," she wrote. "It is a conscious realization of the union that is already effected between our souls and God by grace. The immediate end of prayer may be to consider some mystery of Christ's life, to resolve a problem, to seek guidance for a practical course of action. But the ultimate end of prayer is always communion with God. It is receptivity to his self-communication in silence and in the course of life situations. It is continually discovering God at the center of our being so that we can carry him into the midst of our doing."²

I now revel in my intimate moments with God. Sometimes I use no words in my prayer; instead I am there only with Him, being as open as possible, waiting for whatever might be. At other times my prayer is one of adoration or thanksgiving; other times I tell Him about my plans or about the events in my life, as I would any friend.

Occasionally I listen to see if there is anything God would say to me. When He does speak, it is always in a still, small voice or in an impression that gives me confidence that He is there and that He cares.

Often I record my prayers in a journal, an especially helpful exercise because it allows me a bit of analysis of events in my day. Discovering how God spoke to me through an encounter or how He used me to sup port or comfort someone else is critical to my growth.

Crisis times

During the time of my wife's battle with cancer, I experienced a real crisis of faith. Though I understood on an intellectual level the randomness of crises, I still expected God to heal her. When He did not, I was deeply disappointed and wondered whether asking for His intervention was ever appropriate. I have grown through my hurt, but that experience has left a profound impact. Questions remain for which I have only begun to find answers.

I am absolutely convinced that God knows me intimately and that His response to my requests for intervention is based on what is best for me at that time, as well as how my own little life fits into the cosmic struggle between good and evil.

Miraculous events that change the course of history seem to me to be rare, occurring when God determines that faith could be created or His own name honored. It also may be that those generations or cultures that had less opportunity to understand His nature could expect interventions more regularly.

Obviously, my conclusions are based on limited observations. Were it possible to see into the dimensions where God operates, I would likely be surprised at how personally involved He is with our lives. There is no question but that He wants us to tell Him about our struggles.

Requesting wisdom and courage to deal with them is a mark of a maturing prayer life; expecting them to always be removed is attempting to create the paradise on earth that is promised only after sin has been eradicated, and will fail to bring into our inner being the refinement we all need, as long as we are this side of that paradise.

A different focus

For this reason my simple have changed in their focus. Rather than asking Him to deliver me from all hardships, I tell Him what I'm facing and ask Him to accompany me through each one. If He chooses to remove a barrier, I am thankful; if He does not, I know He is with me, sup plying what I need. That is enough. When I pray for others, I am just as interested in their spiritual welfare as I am in what God might do about their physical needs.

What's important is that God is with me and cares about every day of my life. I believe that is the real importance of Job's story. "When Job recognizes God's immediate presence to him, he is given a new and different resource for the problems he endures. In seeing God, Job is engulfed by a reality so different from human expectation that he is lifted out of the human perspective. When Job lives in the immediacy of God's presence when Job sees God rather than just hearing about God Job lives with someone rather than living for something. The intensity of God's life, which is the activity of God's willed presence, becomes more real to Job than the presence of his torment."³

I have experienced my own "dark night of the soul." There are periods of dryness when God doesn't seem close at all, but there are also wonderful times when He is so close I can all but feel His breath.

I now know that prayer is the key in the hand of my faith, and I am committed to using that key in order to unlock heaven's vast storehouses. Those storehouses aren't filled with hard currency or even magic elixirs, but they have opened a thrilling journey of spiritual adventure. That journey is far from over, and there is much more to learn about prayer and God and truth.