How to Pray

A lot of people don’t pray because they say they don’t know how. Some think there is a special vocabulary that God hears. If they don’t use the precise words and inflections, they think God turns a deaf ear. Bullfeathers!

I once heard of an atheist mother whose daughter was killed in an accident. With grief-stricken rage, she lay face down beating the bed and yelling, “GOD, I HATE YOU!!!!” Her rage spent; she lay exhausted. In the still of the moment, she heard God’s voice, “That is the first time you ever spoke to Me.”

God wants to talk with us no matter what we say to Him. He had rather you yell hateful remarks at Him than to treat Him with apathy and indifference. He can handle it. He is not like us. That is why I love Him so.

I don’t know about you, but I often pray what I think He wants to hear. For example, some thieves stole me brand new lawnmower a couple of weeks ago. I felt violated. Mad as heck. Stupid for not protecting it better. But I told the Lord, “I know all things work together for good to them that love and trust You.” That is absolutely true, but I was fit to be tied.

I’m learning that He wants me to be real. Besides, since He is my life living in me, through me, for me, and as me, He feels everything I feel. It’s not like I can hide my feelings from Him. Therefore, we share them together. Then, after we get it off our chests, we can come back to all things working together for good.

A guy named Francois Fenelon learned that a long time ago. I don’t have a clue who he is, but I think he had a good handle on how to pray. His method has worked well for me. I hope it might do the same for you, especially if you don’t pray enough because you don’t know how. Here it is:

HOW TO PRAY

Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend.

Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; 

Tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; 

Tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; 

Tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you conquer them; 

Talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; 

Show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; 

Lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. 

Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and to others.

If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say.  You will never exhaust the subject. 

It is continually being renewed. 

People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. 

They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say. 

They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration they say just what they think.  Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God (by Francois Fenelon).

Blessings,

Kenny