March 15

Prayer

                Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.  Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

James 5:13-16

            It is easy for prayer to feel empty.  We say what we’re thankful for.  We ask for help with a few things.  We often use the same words.  There is not a lot of life and renewal that comes out of that formula.  To be fair, if this was the way that we talked with people, our relationships would suffer as well.  This kind of communication leaves no room for dialogue, no space to listen to the other person, nowhere to actually be real about what we are excited about or worried about or curious about.  It is clean and efficient and allows us to say that we have prayed…kind of like sending a daily update memo to God.

            Real prayer is not efficient, or clean, or formulaic.  It is actual dialogue and relationship with God.  It involves us saying what is really going on within us, both the spectacular and the crushing.  It involves us listening to what God wants to say back to us.  It often involves other people, which can be incredibly vulnerable.  It involves our healing, both physical and internal.  As we are real with God, He can be real with us and show us what he wants to do in order to transform our lives:  soothe old wounds, invite us into new opportunities, calm our fears, heal our sickness, challenge our worldviews, intercede for others.  All available as we take the time to pray.

            We lack time to pray because we lack motivation to pray because we don’t know how good prayer is.  I only have a few minutes of me time during the day.  Would prayer really be as good as finishing a video game level or reading an article or watching a video?  If I ask that question from the pulpit, the answer that I get is vastly different from real life.  We know prayer is good…but we could literally be doing anything else.

            I really want my son to become comfortable with prayer.  Knowing how to talk to God and listen for His response will be an invaluable tool for him as he goes through his life. Being connected to the One who heals both internally and externally is only going to help him grow.  Having a way to interact with and connect with other members of the community of faith will be a great resource.  However, communication is hard for my son.  Relationship is hard for my son.  Listening is super hard for my son.  So we start with me modeling prayers about the same things at the same times using the same words that he can internalize and use the framework of prayer.

            Hopefully we progress and move into being able to listen...maybe journaling about what God is saying back.  Maybe we try joining the prayer chain and interceding for needs in our church and around the world.  Maybe we try praying for the needs and healing of others.  Maybe we just try sitting silently for a couple of minutes.  I want him to experience the power of God and the power of prayer…I just need to commit to prioritizing that because life fills up pretty quickly.

A moment to reflect:

What do you want to see your child’s prayer life look like?  How could you help get them there?