From Paul E. Miller and his book “A Praying Life”:
EVEN IF YOU FEEL that you pray badly, we need to know what good prayer looks like and feels like in order to develop a praying life. Knowing where we are headed can help us on the journey. So before we get into the nitty-gritty of how to pray, let’s get a clearer picture of what we are aiming for.
The Praying Life . . . Feels like Dinner with Good Friends
The highlight of Kim’s week is our Saturday evening meal with Mom-Mom, her grandmother, at a local restaurant. On a hot summer day or a bitter winter day, Kim comes in exhausted from her job as a dog walker at a kennel, but she perks up when she sits down to eat with Mom-Mom. We prop up her speech computer in front of her and she chats away on the keyboard. We never get tired of hearing her electronic voice, partly because we never know what’s going to come next.
Recently, we were in a restaurant and Kim ordered lasagna with her speech computer by selecting a three-icon sequence that spoke the word lasagna.1 When the waitress told Kim that the lasagna was vegetarian and not liking change of any sort, she hit the table with her first, making the silverware and plates dance. The poor waitress about jumped out of her shoes. When she came back with our food, she circled us cautiously, not sure when she was going to get a repeat performance. Our family will be telling that story for years.
Our best times together as a family are at dinner. At home, after a meal, we push our plates aside and linger together over . . . hot chocolate. We have no particular agenda; we simply enjoy one another. Listening, talking, laughing. If you experience the same thing with good friends or family, you know it is a touch of heaven.
When Jesus describes the intimacy he wants with us, he talks about joining us for dinner. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me? (Revelation 3:20).
A praying life feels like family mealtimes because prayer is all about relationships. It’s intimate and hints of eternity. We don’t think about communication or words, but about whom we are talking with. Prayer is simply the medium through which we experience and connect with God.
Oddly enough, many people struggle to learn how to pray because they are focusing on prayer not on God. Making prayer the center is like making conversation the center of family meal time. In prayer, focusing on the conversation is like trying to drive while looking at the windshield instead of looking through it. It freezes us, making us unsure of where to go. Conversation is the only vehicle through which we experience one another. Consequently, prayer is not the center of this book. Getting to know God is the center.
The Praying Life . . . Is Interconnected with All of Life.
Because prayer is all about relationship, we can’t work on prayer as an isolated part of life. That would be like going to the gym and out just on you left arm. You’d get a strong left arm, but it would look odd. Many people’s frustrations come from working on prayer as an abstract.
We don’ learn to pray in isolation from the rest of our lives. For example, the more I love my youngest daughter, Emily, the more I pray for her. The reverse is true as well; the more I learn how to pray for her, the more I love her. Nor is faith an isolated prayer. The more my faith grows, the bolder my prayers get for Jill. Then, the more my prayers are answered, the more my faith for her grows. Likewise, if I suffer, I learn how to pray. As I learn how to pray, I learn how to endure suffering. The intertwining applies to every aspect of the Christian life.
Since a praying life is interconnected with every part of our lives, learning to pray is almost identical to maturing over a lifetime. What does it feel like to grow up? It’s a thousand feelings on a thousand different days. That is what learning to pray feels like. So don’t hunt for a feeling in prayer. Deep in our psyches we want an experience with God or an experience with prayer. Once we make that our quest, we lose God. You don’t experience God; you get toe know him. You submit to him. You enjoy him. He is, after all, a person.
Consequently, a praying life isn’t something you accomplish in a year. It’s a journey of a lifetime. The same is true of loving your spouse or a good friend. You never stop learning this side of heaven. There is far too much depth in people to capture love easily. Likewise, there is far too much depth in God to capture prayer easily.
Things such as growing up and learning to love do have an overall feel, though. They are slow, steady, filled with ups and downs. Not spectacular but nevertheless real. There is not one magic bullet a thousand pinpricks that draw us into a spiritual journey or pilgrimage. And every spiritual pilgrimage is a story.~~~Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life (NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, CO, TYNDALE is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Publishers 2009, 2017) p. 7-9
