I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Is there a more intimidating, and shame-producing question than, “How is your prayer life?” Ortberg offers the provocative and liberating notion that we are never speaking or acting outside of God’s presence. He is always “with us” so our thoughts, words and actions are in essence prayers. He says, “The goal of prayer is to live all of my life and speak all of my words in the joyful awareness of the presence of God. (p. 134)” Wow. I think I could probably devote the next 30 years to that one.
I talk in front of people for a living. And yet, in so many ways, I am a quiet introvert. I’m hardly ever at a loss for words but I’m often tired of words. So private prayer is sometimes hard for me. I’m not comfortable giving God laundry lists. I have trouble imagining He’d have much to say to me beyond, “get your act together.” For as long as I can remember, I have mostly defined prayer as time spent with my eyes closed asking God to intervene in various situations. The harder it is the more real it is. It frees me to consider his broader definition of prayer. It makes prayer less of a chore and more of a delight. He actually, indirectly, helps resolve the ago-old tension between our praying and God’s omniscience. Prayer as relationship. It makes more sense. It loosens the chains.
Finally, the invitation to “pray what is in me” is also freeing. Reading between the lines of this book, I sense Ortberg is a recovering performance junkie. He may have actually mentioned that early in the book. His distinction between praying what is in me versus what I wish were in me frees me from pretend caring. Now I believe God purifies our desires as we grow in Him. His will increasingly becomes our will. We grow to want what He wants. We begin to care about what He cares about. But it takes time. So praying what I want. Simple. Pretty easy. Liberating.
Once more I apologize for the long delay. I know its been awhile, but I’d love to restart this conversation so feel free to jump in.
I can still remember the first week of 7th grade. Sister Valentina proudly showed the poster board she made for our class with all of our names listed down the left hand side and the roughly 12 prayers we had to memorize and be able to recite to her and the rest of the class by the end of the school year. Some were easy – The Sign of the Cross, the Hail Mary, the Apostles Creed -while some were long prayers we never head of before. in order to mark our progress we would get a star after our name for each prayer we successfully memorized. Woe to the student who was the last to complete their prayers because it was posted in the front of the room for all to see. ”If you can’t recite all your prayers”, she would say, “you wont pass religion class”.
For much of my early years this was what prayer was to me and I think it definitely impacted my relationship with God. Those prayers weren’t my words, they didn’t express my feelings, and in some cases I could’t even understand what they meant. Thankfully I’ve come to realize that prayer can be so much more than that and is as simple as just communicating with God as Ortberg says. I also think that prayer can be done through words, music, art, body language, and even just being quite and listening. I actually think God enjoys the prayers that direct, simple, and honest and Jesus reenforced that through his teachings. God isn’t looking for long prayers fully of fancy words – he’s looking for us to share whats in our heart. Sometimes that’s joy, sometimes that’s fear, sometime it’s worry, sometimes it’s gratitude, and so on…
I agree with Ortberg that prayer needs to be an ongoing conversation with God and I believe that God speaks to us through words, other people, circumstances, nature, and scripture to name a few of the ways. That’s why it is impprtant that we take time to listen – which isn’t always easy for me. Imagine the people we know that never seem to be at loss for words in conversations and we can never get a word in. I’m sure God feels the same about us sometimes.
Yep- I really liked this chapter, too. A reminder, but fresh and surprising as well.
I particularly noted the Richard Foster quote, “Countless people…have such a ‘stained-glass’ image of prayer that they fail to recognize what they are experiencing as prayer……”
I don’t have much to say, but I enjoyed the whole book. Will certainly be present for any further conversation.
I enjoyed the book. I liked the chapter. My grandmother taught me to pray at nite by mybed, I still do this. Growing up, i exapnded this to talking to God throughout my day. I guess the conversation mode is the one I have always used. I have always felt God listening and watching. I feel hispresence when I screw up, feel terrified, laugh or when i experience joy and especially wonder. I am trying to memorize scripture, but this has always been hard for me. i like hte idea of learning to communicate and listen in different ways although it seems I always fall back to the style i am most comfortable with.