There are few things I enjoy more than sitting down with a mug of coffee and having a conversation with someone I love.
But not all conversations are enjoyable. A conversation with someone with whom you share little connection can be exhausting rather than refreshing, as you constantly worry about what to say next. The person you are conversing with truly makes all the difference.
In many religions, people view prayer as a conversation with God. Unsurprisingly, then, people’s emotions toward prayer vary depending on their view of God. If we see God as someone who blesses or curses us based on our religious performance, prayer becomes a fearful task.
As a result, in times of desperation, it becomes necessary to seek his favour. For some, prayer is simply a tool to calm the mind and find peace in a troubled world. To others, prayer may sound nice but feels so dull in practice that it eventually fades from their lives.
Christians are not immune to these mixed emotions about prayer. That’s why it’s crucial not to let our feelings guide our prayer life but rather to let God’s living Spirit, through His Word, shape how we pray (Col. 3:16).
The Beauty of Prayer
At its core, conversation is a means of connection. It reflects that God made us in his image. He designed us to have a deep connection with him and with others. So conversing with God has much in common with human conversation.
Growing in prayer is never easy.
Our most fulfilling conversations are with people who understand us—people who “get” us, who know us well, and with whom we share life’s joys and pains. These bonds, built on genuine love, are the foundation of meaningful conversation. When people understand and love us, it is the pinnacle of human connection.
However, though we are made in God’s image, he is vastly different from us. He is the most glorious and loving being in the universe. Prayer satisfies our hearts in ways that the most meaningful human conversations cannot. God understands and loves us more deeply than anyone else ever could.
In moments of grief or darkness, when human words fail to comfort, God knows our hearts completely. As Psalm 139 tells us, he searches and knows us (Ps. 139:1), discerns our thoughts from afar (Ps. 139:2), and knows our words even before we speak them (Ps. 139:4).
The beauty of prayer is that we do not need to know the right words, or any words at all (Luke 28:9-14, Rom. 8:26-27). Prayer brings our hearts before God, even through groans, sighs, and tears. It is a means of grace through which we know he understands us.
A prayer-less life is a symptom of an orphaned heart.
What makes prayer even more precious is that God not only fully understands us but also fully loves us. No human being can do that.
God sees all of our pain, shame, sin, failure, brokenness, and rebellion, yet meets them all with the fullness of his love. There is no place, however dark or painful, that God’s love cannot reach (1 John 1:9; Rom. 8:38–39). In prayer, we can bring our most broken and unloved parts to God’s perfect love, so he can fill us with his power.
Our Struggle to Pray
Growing in prayer is never easy. Even Jesus’ disciples struggled to stay awake when he wanted them to pray, in the crucial moments before his crucifixion (Mark 14:32–41).
When life spins out of control, prayer is not usually our first response. What makes it so difficult is a deep-seated unbelief in God. We act as if we are alone and must fend for ourselves.
A prayer-less life is a symptom of an orphaned heart. It cannot see God as a loving Father who devotes himself to us. But God truly is a Father who longs for us to commune with him in the hustle, the mundane, the grime, and the battles of life. He wants us to experience his constant presence in every moment (1 Thess. 5:17; Ps. 16:7).
As God transforms us to be more like Jesus, we will naturally begin to pray like Jesus
When our own thoughts make us feel ashamed, it is hard to imagine that God hears those thoughts without feeling the same way. But God wants to hear from us—just as we are.
Our prayers do not need to be sanitised. Jesus invites us to come before him authentically. Prayer is the first thing God desires when we are stressed, angry, ashamed, or surrounded by darkness and temptation (Phil. 4:6–7).
The Confidence to Pray
Even though growing in prayer can feel like a struggle, we do not have to strive alone. God, through the power of his salvation, transforms our hearts to trust him more. As God transforms us to be more like Jesus, we will naturally begin to pray like Jesus (John 17; Luke 22:42).
As we grow in understanding the depths of Jesus’ love for us and exercise our trust in him, prayer will slowly become something different. Instead of being a superficial chore or a mere list of requests, prayer will become our way of intimately connecting with and depending on God.
We will find freedom from shame and bring our true selves before him, confident that perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). We can boldly ask for our needs and those of others, trusting that the God who gave us his Son will provide all we need (Heb. 4:16; 1 John 5:14–15).
Prayer will become a delightful way to experience God’s heart, not just his hand, interceding for others and setting our hope on the certainty of God’s kingdom coming on earth, as it is in heaven.
