Lesley is had us answer these questions for church this week.

How do you pray?

I pray by thinking in my head the things that I want to say to God. I assume and trust that this is sufficient for getting the message across, but sometimes think that greater emotional involvement is important.

Sometimes I repeat a liturgical prayer (possibly one I’ve written), but I haven’t been doing this as much lately. Urban Monastery had a bunch of these prayers on it, but the site is down now.

I don’t usually pray before meals. It’s a good habit to pray frequently, but food is not the only thing I want to pray about, so it seems silly to pray about food 100 times more than anything else. I guess that means I need to pray more about the other stuff, rather than pray less about food.

I don’t pray before bed, because I would always fall asleep.

Why do you pray? No, seriously. I expect you all to share.

OK, OK. Fine. Several reasons.

I pray when I want something to happen, and either don’t think it will happen on its own, or think it just may, and want to tip the odds in my favor. For example, if I had been in the running to win a Video iPod instead of Amy, I probably would have prayed about it. The odds were good, about 20% that she would win, and praying seems like a very helpful thing to do in that situation. She won the iPod.

I pray when a bad situation occurs, and I can’t really do anything else about it.

I pray when I see something so beautiful that I must talk to God about it. If I have my camera, I take a picture, and sometimes consider this an act of worship.

Who taught you to pray?

My parents, though not in the way I pray now. When I was a kid, I prayed for long lists of the things I cared about - some of which were silly, some of which were very significant.

Now I pray mostly when I think of one of those things, or when I’m in a situation that seems to call for prayer.

Is it really something you need to learn, or something you can just do?

Both, I think.

Does God always hear you?

Yes, almost by definition. He can ignore me if he wants, but God’s omniscience means he always hears.

What is the role of the Holy Spirit in prayer?

I don’t know exactly, but I would think that the inner, transformative function of prayer is the work of the Holy Spirit.

What is the point of praying, if God already knows everything?

We pray to change us, and make us more like God. Prayer is the primary form of our interaction with God, and developing this relationship is the primary task of being a follower of God.

General observations:

• We don’t pray nearly as much as we used to (before meals, before bed, etc.)
• The things we say in prayer aren’t really meant to be shared - they aren’t especially eloquent or original thoughts
• We do pray in times of crisis
• Less of our prayer is devoted to asking for stuff than it used to be
• We become like the people we spend time with - including God. Prayer, then, helps us become more like God.
• There are forms of prayer that don’t need to be taught, because they are innate and natural, but other forms that we can learn.

Thoughts? Reactions? Angry accusations?