While I know God welcomes my sighs and groans as prayers that are plenty eloquent, I do try to find good words, expressive words, my best and most authentic words when I speak with God. Sometimes that means admitting like Moses, “I am not able to speak well” (Exodus 4:10), and so I rely on the words of others. I collect books of prayers that enable me to borrow moving, beautiful words in prayer, and also to be reminded of things I would otherwise forget to include in my praying. I should list some examples, and will later on…

I also try to share with you when someone else’s words say so well what I’m hoping to say to you. Sam Wells, the Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, once described prayer rather wonderfully and in sync with what I’ve been after in this series:

“Prayer means petition: explicitly looking to God to transform all in life that does not reflect his glory, and specifically requesting him to meet needs, heal bodies, and change hearts. Prayer means wonder: being taken out of the mundane and routine and being astonished and dazzled by the breadth and detail of creation and the depth and passion of redemption. Prayer means recognition of error: painful admission of purposeful sin and participation in widespread evil, and resolve to be done with such ways of thinking and saying and doing and to begin again the new life made possible in Christ. Prayer means gratitude: receiving all the contours of life as the gifts of a gracious God, re-narrating the events of each day as a letter of love from God to oneself, and expressing love and joyful thanks in return. Prayer means silence: humble meditation, the simple offering of time, the stillness that attests to the fundamental priority of God’s activity, the simple opening of the ears of the heart. And if prayer means reading the Bible, it does so in the sense that the disciple seeks that the words of Scripture enrich and inform these various modes of prayer, shaping the Christian’s understanding of the awesome goodness and grace of God and the mysteriously yet invariably inhibited character of human response, and placing this act of prayer within a great sequence of divine-human conversations. Prayer is an end in itself: it is an experience of God’s ultimate purpose that his people should worship him and be his friends. It is not a means. References to the power of prayer are properly a way of referring to the power of God. Prayer is a gift to the church in the patterns of life the Church must adopt if its people seek to become people of prayer.”

I might add two things. The only way to pray is to pray, and pray again, and keep praying. Over time, you will become the kind of person who can petition, wonder, recognize error, give thanks, be silent, and read the Bible. Those are like four of my “5 things” (Help, Thanks, Wow, Confession), and he adds two others we’ve spoken of: silence and reading the Bible. He’s omitted my #5, which can’t be neglected: commitment. Having spoken with God, you inevitably will hear of an errand God needs someone to run or a hard labor somebody’s got to handle or a new life direction or standing with vulnerable people or giving lavishly or loving nobly – and probably all of the above. Prayer concludes with a pledge to God to live a prayerful, holy, committed, bold, obedient, joyful life.

So my friends: pray. And keep praying. God loves time with you.