It’s hard to talk when you don’t believe anyone is listening. It’s scary to open up when you aren’t sure how the words will form.
What if it’s ugly? What if it’s messy? Will I get in trouble?
Saying what you mean – expressing what you feel – is different than verbalizing phrases to fill awkward silences. And the disconnect hurts us more than we want to admit.
At one point, when Jesus had been off alone praying, a disciple said, “Lord teach us to pray.” And in that beautiful plea I hear the disciple’s sense that something deeper was happening in Jesus; as if by teaching them to pray Jesus would actually tell them more about the God who listens.
Not unlike His life and faith, Jesus’ approach to prayer was radical. He went off by himself, up mountains, to lonely places, and spent whole nights praying to God. The disciples, as did most people at that time, understood God as Judge and Ruler, who was approached with polished praises, and Jesus exposed them to God as Father and Friend, who cares and comes close and calls us by name.
Prayer, as Jesus modeled it, is about pouring out your heart to God, being in communion, and trusting that God our Father not only hears, but also deeply listens and always responds, if only we are open to receive the answer.
We get nothing by holding back, by keeping it in, by saying what we think God wants to hear. Because He already sees and already knows, so the gift of real prayer, humble and honest conversation, is realizing the answer is the presence of the Holy Spirit and God’s faithful promise to sustain us.
My circadian rhythm is attuned to the academic calendar. These last few summer weeks before the start of new school years typically weigh a little heavier; it’s the uncertainty, anticipation, and reception of how all the pieces will fit together again with the same purpose but an evolving process. As a kid, despite how much I enjoyed the classroom environment, the first two weeks of the school year were tough on my stomach.
Recently, I told my mom about the anxiety I experienced as a way of helping her understand what my nephew and niece might feel starting at a new school. She was surprised when I told her; “you never showed it,” she said. And that hurts differently than the dread. Fears can be managed when we are willing to talk about them, but thoughts and feelings we suppress linger inside like angry scars.
After I first met Jesus, I am not sure I explicitly asked Him to teach me to pray, but what Christ taught me as I prayed is that my feelings mattered, my questions were ok to ask, and my voice was not in the way.
It happened late, but prayer taught me how to talk – I mean really express the longings of the soul and the worries of a tainted heart. Reading aloud with the psalms, I began to recognize the release that draws the Beloved closer.
Because that’s what we truly want, isn’t it? Not a genie that grants temporary wishes for temporary things, but a loving God who stays with us throughout the process, no matter how messy or confusing it might feel in the moment.
And surely God already knows that about us, so the audacious truth found in the God who Jesus teaches us to pray to, is that our Father delights in hearing us say what He puts on our hearts.
