What is Prayer?
My Discovery of Prayer
I grew up learning three forms of prayer: intercession, petition, and thanksgiving. Prayer was a one-way street—and I was the driver. It was about me making myself known to God, very ego-centric in nature.
Eventually, I hit a dead end. Prayer became frustrating, even infuriating, and felt like a waste of time and energy. It rarely seemed to make a difference, often felt manipulated, and never touched the deeper, painful places of my heart. I nearly gave up altogether, wondering what the point of prayer even was—until, in a last attempt to find meaning, I took a class on the history of Christian spirituality: an introduction to prayer.
I came to learn—though much later than I would have liked—that prayer is complex. For centuries, long before Christ, countless people have sought to communicate with and understand their Maker, their purpose, and the meaning of life. Prayer has taken many forms throughout history, and there is much wisdom to uncover when we look back.
Along the way, I realized that prayer had been present in my life long before I ever recognized it as prayer. It’s humbling to discover a little understanding of history can open a world of insight. I’ve come to learn that there are countless ways to pray—far beyond words spoken aloud.
Prayer can look like:
- Sitting in silence
- Standing in awe and gratitude in nature
- Listening deeply
- Journaling your thoughts and emotions
- Meditating on Scripture
- Expressing through writing, poetry, art, or creativity
- Participating in liturgy
- Living within the rhythms of sacred time—the church calendar
- Practicing celebration and lament
- Fasting as a form of justice and healing
- Praying through Lectio or Visio Divina
- Resting in Centering Prayer
- Entering into Imaginative Prayer or the Examen
- Sitting in contemplation, stillness, or simple noticing
- Whispering a breath prayer
- Lifting your heart through song and worship
- Enjoying life with all your being
Any response to the awakening of God’s presence to you in the world is prayer.
Each prayer form is an invitation to be present to God’s love.
What Is Prayer?
Prayer is where your desire and longing encounter a Love that leads to transformation.
Prayer is the pathway to our origin story, a Spirit-led communion through Christ with our Creator. It is the God-implanted way of connection to the Triune One who reveals our true identity as beloved, our purpose as participants in God’s work in the world, and our belonging as holy children of God.
Throughout all creation—and within our very being—God is continually self-communicating. Prayer is our response to that ongoing revelation woven through all things.
Prayer is an intuitive means of connecting to our Creator—our source of life. Within the recesses of our being, we long to be known, to know ourselves, to have meaning, purpose, love, and help. Prayer is our natural human desire, manifesting our longings for life beyond ourselves. It touches our human commonality and need.
Transformative prayer looks like being at home–welcomed, known, and beloved.
Why Does Prayer Matter?
God’s self-communication is alive in art, beauty, nature, our senses, Scripture, history, people, relationships, work, and play. Through all these, the Spirit draws us toward faith, hope, and love—each formed by the Spirit and offered for the glory of the Trinity.
Prayer opens our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our minds to know, and our bodies to experience the world through God’s creative vision. It becomes the means of our ongoing awakening to God’s presence in all creation—drawing us into divine love and the sustaining threads that hold all of life together. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” —Acts 17:28
Prayer is the discovery that our Creator loves us, is ever-present, and longs to be known and to co-create with us.
The power of prayer lies in connection. It penetrates the mystery of God, meets us in the paradoxes of our lived realities, and lifts the veil that shadows our awareness of goodness, peace, hope, love, joy, and healing.
Christ opens a portal to God, allowing a flood of full communication, relationship, and restorative love to pour into our lives, beginning a metamorphosis of cosmic proportions. We become new creations—Christ alive in us, the Spirit guiding us to be an offering of God’s creative love back into the world, to others.
Through prayer, beauty and healing are made—today, tomorrow, and for all eternity.
The Goal of Prayer
The Spirit’s purpose for us is transfiguration in Jesus Christ, a more beautiful state of being. Prayer is the pathway the Spirit uses to guide us to Christ, who reveals God’s heart. It is our way to wholeness–human flourishing. Through prayer, we are brought home, named, enlivened, and freed from the burdens of brokenness, sin, and evil. We look to the saints, mystics, monastics, and Christians throughout the ages as our teachers. Their faithful pursuit of Christ through prayer inspires us, illuminates our path, and expands our understanding of God’s love. Together with all the saints, we begin to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of Christ—and discover the transfigurative power of prayer that leads to the fullness of all creation in Christ. (Ephesians 1-3)
Why Pray?
You were made to pray.
It is part of your very DNA and your calling to be Light and Love in the world. Prayer awakens and enlivens us to goodness, kindness, gentleness, hope, faith, love, generosity, joy, peacemaking, and more.
Spirit-led prayer inspires our inward transfiguration, so we can outwardly transform our world. This is God’s Kingdom vision. You are part of that vision, and prayer is how we co-create, co-labor, and co-imagine a world where Heaven and Earth meet.
Wherever you are on your prayer journey, come as you are. Let prayer awaken your heart and draw you into beauty, healing, and love that inspires you to co-create with God.