“When you pray do not use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do, who think that they will be heard for their many words. . . for you Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”  Jesus in Matthew 6

“Prayer is the art of presence.  Where there is no wonder there is little depth of presence.”  John O’Donahue

People talk too much.  It is evidence of our own false sense of importance.  It is a reflection on our discomfort with silence.  It is perhaps a lack of awareness; not only self-awareness, but Spirit awareness.

People talk too much even and especially when it comes to prayer.  This is not merely my own opinion, it is the reality that Jesus reflects upon here in this sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew.  In distinction to the Pharisees, who prayed to be not only heard but seen as well, and the general populace who thought that it was necessary to assault God with petitions, Jesus advocates for stillness and silence, which is to be broken with few, if any words.  For Jesus, prayer was not about speaking, but about listening.  Prayer was not about doing, but about being; Being in the Presence of God.  

How different this is from what I, and probably many others, were taught.  Prayer was presented as a one-way conversation between us and God.  Prayer is the opportunity for us to present our petitions to God, and then wait for God to answer us.  This answer would be given in the Word of God, which is where God speaks.  It was always confusing to me how the petitions specific to my particular situation could be addressed in a book that was written so long ago and was not about me! Thus for me prayer became kind of a guessing game in which one peppers God with all kind of desperate requests and desires, and then hopes somehow that God, who is “out there” somewhere, will not only hear the prayers, but consider them significant enough to respond to.  That response, as I was taught, would be “Yes, No, or Not Now”.

I found myself frequently quite frustrated.  I didn’t pray as much as I felt I should—after all the Bible says, “Pray without ceasing”.  I did OK on Sundays in church, but the rest of the week was hit and miss, much more of the latter than the former.  And when I did make time for prayer I didn’t know if I was asking for the right things.  Or in the right way.  Often-times I felt inadequate when I would talk to others who would tell about the prayer lists that they would keep.  A couple of times these “Prayer Warriors”, as they called themselves, shamed me into emulating their pious prayer practices. I attempted to keep a list of everything and everyone that needed prayers, but it felt a bit like writing a letter to Santa Claus, so I usually discarded it quite quickly. 

Two events changed the way I pray.  One was leaving my profession as a pastor, a position in which I was paid for praying.  Prayer no longer became an obligation when I left my pastoral occupation.  The other event was being in a place in life that was so dark, desperate and directionless that I didn’t even know if I wanted to pray, let alone who to pray to or what to say if I did.  It was then, when my mouth was shut, that God opened my heart to prayer.  Prayer became not a time to talk, but to listen.  Prayer was not something that I did on Sunday, but something that God did in and for me every day.  Prayer was not a performance to try to please God or impress others, but a time to be in the presence of God. 

In time I found that this new perspective on prayer and God was not unique.  There were many others who saw prayer not as a time to convey a diatribe to the Divine, but as a still and silent space in which one was led by the Spirit into the Presence of God. Listen to how O’Donahue describes this.

“One of the fascinating things to ask about prayer is, What do you pray with?  Put more tenderly:  What is it that prays within you?  If prayer is but the voice of the superficial mind, the result is endless inner (and I might add “outer”) chatter. Prayer goes deeper.  More precisely:  prayer issues from an eternal well within you.  The presence that prays within you is your soul.  It is interesting to read in the New Testament that the soul is always seen as a continuation of the Holy Spirit. No place does it ever say that we should pray TO the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not different from the activity of your prayer.  You pray IN the Holy Spirit.  The little preposition suggests how you are suffused with the Holy Spirit.  Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the deepest level in you is spirit.”

Do you see what this means?  Because the Holy Spirit is living in us, therefore God is present in and with us!  And because of this God already knows everything that we need, before we even mention it, as Jesus makes abundantly clear.  Therefore, we need not try to reach God with our prayers, but rather simply rest in the recognition that God is present with us.  That, incidentally, is the prayer of Jesus recorded in John 17, that the Father may be one with us as He is with the Son.

Just one more thing about this perspective on prayer as Being in the Presence of God.  It can happen anywhere and everywhere!  It can be in the dedicated quiet of the early morning, or the rush of the workday, or in the midst of the maelstrom of trying to manage the most recent life crisis, or on a peaceful walk in the mountains.  Prayer is merely a matter of being aware of God’s presence.  But what’s really comforting is that even when we’re not aware, The Spirit is still there interceding on our behalf in ways that words cannot express.  Here are some questions to ponder in prayer.

What is your perspective on prayer?

How, when and why do you pray?

What would it look like if you were more focused on being in prayer, than on doing or speaking?