Learning to Pray

The dirty little secret in the church is that most of us have no idea how to pray.We feel guilty that we don't pray enough. We aren't sure if God's listening anyway. Or even if God is listening, why would God respond to us?We feel paralyzed because we're not supposed to treat God like a vending machine, but there are some things that we feel desperate about, and if we're not supposed to ask God about it, who can we ask?And it is very weird to pray out loud with others. Please, can we be honest about that?So, I'm learning to pray. My prayers are pretty short. Sometimes they don't have any words at all.I love what Ruth Haley Barton has said about prayer: It's simply bringing to God what is. What is really happening in your life? In what ways can you bring God into that? What is the shortest, truest thing?And then we feel like there is no way we could hear what God might be saying to us. But perhaps it's less mysterious than we think. Perhaps it's just living into these kinds of questions:What are you angry about? What makes you cry? What do you think needs to be fixed in the world? Who needs to be loved? Where do you need rest? What portions of Scripture seem to shimmer when you read them?Your answers to all of those questions are a good indicator of God's invitations to you.I gave a talk last weekend about learning to pray, so if you have 30 minutes, watch it below. If you don't have 30 minutes, here are the three questions that I asked during my talk:1. What is keeping you from bringing to God what actually is in your life?2. What would it mean to look at prayer as partnering with God, vs. just following orders?3. Are you praying out of duty, or desire? What do you want?https://vimeo.com/66562274How are you learning to pray? What is helping and what isn't helping?