When a person becomes convinced of the necessity of prayer, very often they will begin by focusing on the mechanics of prayer: How do I pray and how often should I pray? Where should I pray and at what time? Whom should I pray to most, the Father, Son, or the Holy Spirit? What about Mary and the saints? Should I pray to them also? These are, of course, important questions. We would benefit greatly by both listening to the Church’s wisdom on these matters and by discussing them with a spiritually mature person whose life of prayer is firmly established.
However, as relevant as these questions are regarding the life of prayer, they are not, I believe, the most important question about prayer. Rather, the primary question about prayer is this: How deeply do I believe that God loves me? How I answer that question will ultimately reveal the state of my spiritual life, and in turn, will reveal to me the depth or lack of depth of both my prayer life and my relationship with God.
Furthermore, is God’s love for me an idea, something that I like to think about and meditate on occasionally? Is God’s love for me something that I hope or even wish is true? Oh, I hope God’s love is true, I might say to myself at times. Or is God’s love the foundation of my life, the one from which I live and embrace my entire life? If God’s love for me is like that, then the last thing I most likely need is to read anything about prayer, because I already understand it!
The problem, for all of us, is that we don’t fully believe in God’s love enough, both for ourselves and others. Therefore, life, work, relationships, and most especially prayer can be strenuous at times and filled with many trials, confusion and even heartbreak. Life, even if we do believe in God’s love, is difficult, however, life without belief in God’s love is utterly impossible! The same can be said about the life of prayer. Both saints and sinners have experienced prayer at times to be a moment of deep peace, joy, and consolation, while at other times, prayer can feel like a descent into darkness and emptiness.
When prayer is arduous, we tend to do one of three things: We either quit, immerse ourselves in activity, or contrive elaborate methods of prayer in the hope that this method will “turn” God towards us! Yet when we do any or all of those things, what we are doing is seeking self-affirmation instead of practicing self-giving.
Very often, when someone tells me they have stopped praying, the most common reason is “I wasn’t getting anything out of it,” implying that the whole purpose of prayer is for one’s own self-affirmation. This attempt at self-affirmation is a common yet deeply mysterious characteristic of being human. The reason why it is so mysterious is that we all know from our own experience in life that any attempt to affirm ourselves by ourselves almost always ends in vain and only leaves us feeling more alone, isolated, and unloved. And yet, we continue to do it! We do this, I’m convinced, because our humanity is not fully converted to the love of God, and so out of desperation, we try everything, even when we know it won’t work.
If you and I fully believed in God’s love, we would have little concern and very few questions about our prayer life. Why? Because prayer is a relationship of love. What does a relationship of love consist of and look like? First and foremost, it is believing in the love of the one with whom you are in a relationship. If there is no faith or trust in the other’s love, that relationship will be filled with doubt, suspicion, and one will neither be able to give themselves to the other nor receive the other in return. In theory, prayer is so utterly simple, which is why we often find it so complicated and difficult.
A few years ago, I spent an evening with a family I’ve become good friends with. As I was sitting in their living room speaking with both Mike and Sarah, one of their daughters, Abby, who was six years old, came into the living room and walked up to her father, interrupting our conversation and said to him, “Daddy, let’s play hide and go seek.” Mike smiled at his daughter and said to her, “Honey, you go and hide, and when you are ready, let me know and I’ll come looking for you.” Abby ran off in excitement, and moments later, she cried out, “Ok, Daddy, I am ready.” Mike excused himself from our conversation to go and find his daughter. Even though he knew exactly where his daughter was hiding, Mike pretended that he did not know where she was. After searching under beds and opening closets, Mike headed towards the laundry room, and before he even entered the room, Abby came running out and jumped into her father’s arms and said, “Daddy, here I am,” while giggling and smiling from ear to ear. Mike kissed his daughter on the head, put her down, and returned to the living room to continue our conversation.
Minutes later, Abbey returned to the living room and once again interrupted our conversation, saying to her father, “Daddy, let’s play hide and go seek again!” Unable to refuse his daughter’s request, Mike said to her again, “Ok, honey, go and hide, and I’ll come looking for you when you are ready.” Abby ran away to hide, and minutes later, Mike again pretended he didn’t know where his daughter was. This time, as he approached the closet in his room, Abby opened the door and threw herself into her father’s arms and said again, “Daddy, here I am.” This precious scenario occurred throughout the entire afternoon. As soon as Mike approached the place where his daughter was hiding, Abby could not contain her excitement and came running out of hiding and threw herself into her father’s arms.
When I was driving back to the friary that night, I couldn’t help but think about the beautiful relationship that Mike and his daughter Abby possess, as was evidenced in how they played hide and seek. During my reflection, I kept thinking about Abby’s desire to always come out of hiding so that her father could find her, and I thought to myself, isn’t that what our relationship with God is supposed to look like? Isn’t this what prayer is supposed to be like? To have such a trust and delight in God, such a joy in being found, that we come out of hiding, run into his arms, and say, “Here I am, Father, here I am.”
There was no reason for me to ask Abby why she always came out of hiding when her father came close. I knew the reason simply by looking at her smile and hearing her laugh. She came out of hiding because she knew her father was looking for her and she wanted to be in his arms. She knew and believed that her father loved her and that the best place to be was not alone, but with him. In other words, the best place to be for her was to have faith in, accept, and live in this relationship of love. Do we know and believe that God our Father, who loves us, is looking for us, and that the best place for us to be is in his arms? If we do, prayer will be as natural for us as breathing.
Many years ago, after my reversion to Christianity, I sincerely desired to learn how to pray and to give myself to a life of prayer. I wanted to be, and still want to be, a man of prayer. I spent much time praying and tried so hard to pray. I devoured books on prayer, I spoke to holy people about prayer, and I spent time in monasteries and retreat houses hoping to learn how to pray. During this time, I was, at least subconsciously, assuming that prayer was something I could accomplish with maybe the right book, method, teacher, or the right setting. Of course, none of those things is irrelevant. They are all important, however, all of these “good things” can only dispose us to prayer and not teach us to pray. A book, method, or a teacher does not pray for us. To learn how to pray we must enter this relationship of love with God with our whole self, which is ultimately what Jesus teaches about prayer.
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