Recently I ran into a friend I’d not seen in months. We smiled, clasped hands, and progressed with the typical salutations of a chance meeting. When I exclaimed that I had been thinking about her so much lately and praying for her, she grew suddenly serious. “Well, that’s no coincidence.”

Um, okay. I kind of brushed it off. “So, how have you been?”

She went on to thank me profusely for listening to the Holy Spirit. She’d had a really rough summer and was so grateful to know that, even though we hadn’t spoken in a while, I was still faithful in praying for her.

Oh, boy. It’s not that I hadn’t prayed for her. I had! But had I truly been faithful in praying? Had I been prayerful enough?

What actually IS prayer?

Years ago, what seems like a lifetime ago, I lived in a Bosnian village called Gorazde. The house held our landlord’s family (Bosnians who spoke Bosnian and French, but no English), two Korean missionaries (only one of whom spoke English fluently) and me (armed with American English and a handful of very random phrases in about eight different languages; important things like “I’m tired of looking for a man” and “Elvis is alive”). Even though language proved a formidable barrier, the Koreans and I met every morning for a time of spiritual reflection and prayer.

Frequently during those times the one who spoke English would share how prayer was so easy for her. She loved that she never really talked to God; she would just feel Him. She thought things and He would understand her and carry those thoughts to His heart.

Now I know that God perceives our thoughts even before we think them. He knows what we need better than we do. But is just “feeling God” really prayer? Can you have a relationship if you never speak to him?

If we want to know what prayer is, we need only look to the Psalms. Pick any of them. What do you see?

For those that like a good acronym: ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.

More simply put: Prayer is a conversation with God.

It’s HONEST. It includes thoughts and feelings. Confessions. Prayer can have a recap of your current situation and a request of what you want God to do for you. It may list the ways that God has been faithful, highlight his attributes, and describe our position before him. Prayer can be venting. It can be questioning. It can be frustrating. It almost always offers praise.

In college I had a very active prayer life. I never said “Amen.”

You know those homeless people who march down the street chattering away to people you can’t see? That was kind of like me and God. I tried to keep the conversation as an inner monologue, but can’t promise I didn’t look a little crazy from time to time. I would engage in a conversation with friends, then walk away continuing the conversation with God.

You can often tell how close a relationship is by how much time they spend together, how often they talk. God and I never stopped talking.

I loved it.

I miss it.

Never enough and always enough.

The title of this post misleads. Prayer is not a quantitative thing. It’s not a goal to complete. Rather, it’s a striving. 1 Thessalonians encourages us to “pray without ceasing.” We won’t wake up one day and check it off our list of accomplishments. It’s something that’s never finished, something we can always do more.

I want to emphasize both sides of this. One one hand, we can never pray enough. I’ll talk to that side in a minute. But first—

On the other hand, God knows our struggles and he doesn’t want to burden us further. His yoke is light, yes? So if there are seasons in which we just haven’t the strength to pray, he understands that.

In her book Wonderstruck, Margaret Feinberg wrote about a time she laid on the floor of her kitchen, making angels in the crumbs that gathered there, while praying the same three lines over and over. Her body filled with cancer and weakened by chemotherapy, her mind flooded with financial worries, her heart split wide open. She could only pray:

God is good.
God is on the throne.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.

You don’t have to be facing trauma and tribulation to be weary. Managing a home, surviving depression, grieving a loved one… there are so many seemingly simple things that can knock us down. God is with us even when we’re down.

We, as believers, have direct access to the King of kings, the Creator of all things. Life is and can be really hard. Sometimes we’re weak and beaten down and we haven’t the strength to utilize that access. And sometimes we, in an illusion of self-sufficiency, dismiss the opportunity. Like stubborn toddlers, we want to do it ourselves. But access to this King is a gift! We’re fools to brush it off as an annoying chore or something unimportant. We should be running to Him, eagerly pleading the case for all that concerns us, all that breaks our hearts and all that fights against Him and His truth.

It’s not always that easy. It doesn’t come naturally. Sometimes we feel stuck in a dry desert with nothing to say and not a clue of how to start.

What do we do then?

Wrong ways to pray more:

Always wanting to be helpful, let me give you a few ways to make sure your prayer life gets worse.

• Compare ourselves to others — Prayer is a conversation within a relationship. It’s not a competition.
• Set a timer — Yes, we want to pray more, but adding pressure or providing a finishing bell won’t help.
• Believe that the less you pray, the less you’re saved … or vice versa. Prayer lives are not indicative of salvation. They are a barometer of our current intimacy with God, but not of our eternal security. You cannot lose your salvation simply because you haven’t prayed “enough.”
• Insist on the perfect time and environment. If you wait for the sun to shine, the house to be clean and quiet, all your daily tasks to be completed, and Instagram to be less distracting, you will never pray. You must make it a priority, in spite of all the shiny things that tempt you to procrastinate.

Here’s are some ideas to try:

Alright, now let’s talk about how to actually improve your time with God. Not all of these will work for everyone, but it gives you some ideas to try. Use what works for you and discard what doesn’t. Or maybe use some for a season and try the others another time. Mix it up a bit. Keep it fresh.

• Start a prayer journal. The simple act of writing (or typing) can clear pathways to communication. My mother has boxes of notebooks filled with her prayers. She struggles to pray publicly, but give her a pen and spiral-bound pack of paper and she’ll go for hours.
• Keep a list of prayer requests and answers. Ironically, I am a terrible journaler. I know, I know … I have this blog and I write all the time, but I can’t journal, especially my prayers. Lists work better for me. I jot down in bullet form the names of people or the situations that need prayer. Then I simply go through the list. When God answers, I write down how He answered and the date. Reviewing His faithfulness can be tremendously encouraging during times of trial.
• Make an appointment. Intentionally step away from life and all it’s distractions. This doesn’t have to be a full retreat. While those may be lovely, this could be as simple as going for a walk in the afternoon. Or setting aside some time on your calendar. The point is to be intentional. Be still. Make space to breathe in the Breath of Life and just talk to Him.
• Create visual or physical reminders. Maybe you put post-it notes on your bathroom mirror or a note in your phone. I have a rather large collection of coffee mugs and have dedicated different prayer purposes for most of them. My green one reminds me to pray for the Browns (missionaries we support, not the football team). The Thing 1 and Thing 2 mug reminds me to pray for my kids. My typewriter mug gets me to pray for my writing and conversations with others. You get the idea.
• Study prayers in Scripture. The Psalms are fantastic for this. How did David (and others) pray? Were they reserved in their emotions or requests? Were they humble and honest? Or did they put on fancy vocabulary when talking with God?
• Recite historical prayers. If you honestly don’t know what to say or where to start, recite prayers already written for us! We all know The Lord’s Prayer, and there are many other prayers that have been recited by Christians throughout the centuries. I use an app called Venite. It offers daily liturgical prayers and Scripture readings. You could also grab a book of Common Prayer. These tools offer a primer on how to pray, but also serve as a catalyst for our own thoughts and individualized prayers.
• Listen to worship music. My current favorites are Tenth Avenue North, Needtobreathe, Tauren Wells, Lauren Daigle… Don’t forget old hymns! The lyrics to some of those classics can rock your world.

Your Turn: How do you foster a prayerful life?