In the past, when prayer has at times run dry, I have often turned to words that reassure me that I'm not alone:“We yearn for prayer and hide from prayer. We are attracted to it and repelled by it….What holds us back…is the notion that we have to have everything ‘right’ in order to pray”.
I paraphrase a little, but so writes Richard Foster in the opening words of his book called simply ‘Prayer’. He gives in that book a more complete picture of prayer that squeezing a huge topic into a single chapter of Celebration of Discipline might allow.
I offer you one image from the opening chapter of ‘Prayer’ that has stayed with me: “In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture, a child of God cannot pray a bad prayer”.
Green monsters, blue days, yellow submarines and dark nights. No prayer is too simple when offered from the heart.
We are in good company. Nearly all of the prayers offered in the bible are simple prayers. Children of God opening their hearts and making their requests.
Jesus taught the disciples how to pray. There is more for us to learn too, but its only worth learning if it makes us more open before God.
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