With all the talk of prayer we have been having lately I still have a hard time trying to define it. I believe at its basic level I am talking to God. However it seems to me that there are many ways you can talk to God.
One definition and description is that you bow your head in reverence fold your hands together, close your eyes and begin. I believe this is to cancel out your senses and enable you to focus on the task at hand. Sometimes I think that for some this is the only way you pray. I believe strongly that this must be just one way to pray.
At a recent workshop a speaker said that all forms of Church work is prayer. This seems to me to be fairly legitimate and gives God credit for truly seeing into your heart. When a person is cleaning the kitchen or mowing the lawn are they not praying? If our Church is going to be a “House of Prayer” then this must be, otherwise we should meet once a week have a prayer session and go home. No music, no fellowship no human touch just prayer. Then we can trust God to maintain the structure and keep the grass to his liking.
A recent recorded sermon repeating over and over “House of Prayer” confused me when he walked around passing several instruments a massive sound system and finally broke into song. I just have a very hard time understanding the emphasis on prayer and then song? Does that make music redundant, or just a nice add on, a break from prayer or punctuation?
I have been fortunate enough to sing in front of many people. At one time there were reportedly twenty five hundred people in the crowd when our band opened for the Good Brothers. This largely does not bother me. However when someone says “Ted would you please pray for us I want to say “sure when I get home I’ll do just that”. My free-form prayer is about as amateurish an effort as I have ever heard, and I noticed to my relief that I have been asked less and less to perform this function. To me it feels like slam poetry at which I have never been good.
Almighty God can see into my heart and know if I am walking my talk. He knows my needs before I do and perhaps prayer is a form of acknowledging we are on the same page, that we understand those same needs.
Yes we pray daily in our home and I pray quietly alone and feel a great deal of joy when they are answered. Even if prayer seems to be unanswered I know He is listening and understanding this fumbling fool. The privilege of prayer is never lost on me but surely this is not all we do. Just as surely I believe God knows me, loves me and doesn’t require me to pray to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.