Pondering About Prayer

Today, God answered a prayer! My dad has been in a nursing home recovering from a broken hip. Today, he was able to get back home to Kingston Marion Assisted Living. With some of his challenges, we didn’t know if this could happen, so I’m thrilled!

Sometimes, we can be surprised by answered prayers. If we’re honest, most of us struggle in some way with prayer. We think of prayer as something we need to add on to an already filled schedule. It’s just one more thing that gets dumped when the day gets busy.

I like to think of prayer in a different way. Prayer is not an “ought to” activity but a “want to” activity. It doesn’t have to be mundane or monotonous. It doesn’t have to be boring. It’s actually a time that we get to talk and listen to our Heavenly Father and experience joy in His presence.

Perhaps, we you miss out on prayer because we don’t understand that it’s more about a relationship with God, than getting our prayers answered the way we want them answered. In knowing Christ as our Savior, we have access to praying to the God of the universe every moment of the day. And God Himself LOVES when we come to Him. We literally get to talk to the God of the universe! No matter how hard I try, I can't fathom this amazing gift of prayer!

Keep in mind we don’t have to sound eloquent or fancy or anything like that. I think many of us get hung up in prayer because we don’t sound like so and so. I’m glad you don’t sound like so and so! You need to sound like YOU! God loved and made YOU so special and so unique and wants you to come to Him with your specialness and uniqueness. That, my friends, is amazing.

Dallas Willard, a former professor of mine and very wise man said this about prayer: “Don’t seek to develop a prayer life- seek a praying life. A ‘prayer life’ is a segmented time for prayer. You’ll end feeling guilty that you don’t spend more time in prayer. Eventually you’ll probably feel defeated and give up. A ‘praying life” is a life that is saturated with prayerfulness-you seek to do all that you do with the Lord.”

There’s certainly nothing wrong to set aside time to pray. I actually do that every morning. I tend to write my prayers down each day. It’s the way I remember who and what to pray for. If you’d peek at my prayer journal you’d see over and over each day “Please bring Dad back to Kingston.” Hear me for a moment: What Willard’s quote is saying is that as we commune with God throughout our day, we actually can talk to him non-stop, whether you’re at the grocery, on a drive, in a pickle of a predicament, experiencing a kidney stone, or anything else! Life is never compart-mentalized and neither is prayer.

Today, I encourage you to take the next step in your prayer life. As Skye Jethani writes in 'What if Jesus Was Serious about Prayer?', “With our without words, simply invite Him into the life you are already living.”

Nancy Abbott is the Chaplain of the YMCA of Greater San Antonio.