Excited About Praying

It’s no secret that I struggle in my prayer life. This fact is not something I have hide from individual people or our collective community at TNLC. I describe my prayer life as flat, 2-dimensional and anemic. I seem to spend a lot of time just asking for things. I have tried to change this, but nothing really changes because for me prayer is stilted.

I long to have the communion with God through prayer I read and hear others have. I long to pour out my soul to God, not only in requests but praise and thanks too. I long to experience what it is like to be caught up in the wonder of prayer.

I have read books on prayer, some good and some not so good. I have listened to others pray. I have been given advice on how to pray, but things stay the same.
Rigid.
Mechanical.
Unnatural.
I don’t think I would pray at all, except I know I need to and that God hears and understand regardless of my short comings.

I am sure I can trace this back to my church background growing up. I come from a baptistic background were prayer was free form, not scripted and without the understanding of any kind of charismatic flare. This does not mean prayers that were modeled for me were without passion, meaning or vigor. But it does mean that this was no guidelines to follow.

For college I went to a LCMS Lutheran liberal arts school. There I was exposed to liturgy and written prayers for the first time. For class assignments, as a religion major, I sometimes had to write out prayers. I thought this was disingenuous and weird. Prayer was to be sincere, genuine and not contrived. This understanding has not aided me in my spiritual development when it comes to prayer and was prejudicially wrong.

However, things have started to change and it is because of a new approach to prayer and my willing to cast aside my traditional past and seek out other expressions of prayer.

Recently, because of the some new influences, I have started to memorize some Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and biblical prayers.

Here is what I have memorized so far:

Avot: Blessing One of the Amida Prayer
Blessed are You, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the great, mighty and revered God, the Most High God who bestows lovingkindnesses, the Creator of all, who recalls the good deeds of the fathers and who brings a Redeemer to their children's children for his name's sake, in love. O king, helper, savior and shield. Blessed are You, O Lord, the shield of Abraham.

Glory Be
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Jesus Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. ‘Give us this day our daily bread. ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Not earth shattering I know, but immensely helpful. I find myself praying these prayers more often than just in my semi-regular prayer time. I am able to engage in the beauty of what I am saying since I am not thinking about what to say next. Also, I get to soak in the repetition of these prayers which allows them to penetrate my soul and not just skip across the surface of my mind.

For the first time EVER(!), I am excited about praying.