Prayer: It's Like Breathing

Prayer is another form of communion with God, though it is a very different experience than the Lord's Supper.  Formally prayer is "speaking to God in words and thoughts," though as you will see, speaking to God in 'thoughts' can cover a lot of ground.

Now at first it may seem like a good definition of prayer would be "TALKING with God in words and thoughts," but "talking with" is different from "speaking to" in the following way:  God does not speak back in prayer.  Prayer is one-way communication.  God speaks back to us in other ways.

So what do we say to God?  Although prayer will vary from person to person and occasion to occasion, what we can say about prayer falls into two categories:  "supplication and intercession" (that is, asking something of God) or "praise and thanks" (that is, rejoicing in who God is and what He has done for us).

Some people will immediately object that one can say more than this to God.  And I agree!  Just think of the conversations Tevye shares with God in A Fiddler on the Roof.  In that musical, we see a man talking to his God in an almost conversational way, and many of my prayers sound like that.

But there are no commands or promises in God's Word about our "rambling monologues" toward heaven other than God's promise to hear us.  On the other hand, there are commands and promises about our "supplications and intercessions" and "praise and thanks."  So we're going to limit our attention to these!

In the end, though, prayer is like breathing.  You live in a relationship with the Author of Life; apart from that relationship you die.  So sharing with Him your needs and desires because you trust Him to provide what you need and what is good for you - that is simply what it means to have a God!  What would it mean to have a God that you asked nothing from?  Or that you could live just fine without?  That you could take or leave?  That sounds like a toaster or a microwave, not a God!

And the same goes for "praise and thanksgiving"!  We teach our children to say "thank you" when someone does something for them or gives them something because it's polite.  And we want to be respectful to God, too.  But on another level, what would it mean if we had nothing good to say about our God?!?  If we were never impressed with what He does for us?  Or how incredible He is in making  all this stuff that we see around us (to say nothing of making us)?  Or how merciful He is to save us?  Or how gracious to take care of us, even when we don't do enough to take care of ourselves?  If His grace, mercy and power don't move us in our inner being, what kind of God do we have?

You see!  We live in a relationship that moves us to prayer!  It's like breathing!