If you can say it, you can pray it. 🙂

In John 11:41-42, at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus begins to pray. He thanks God for hearing Him, and then says, “I know you always hear me, but for the sake of those standing here, that they may believe You sent me.”  

Jesus could have just done the miracle and raised Lazarus. That would have been as convincing as anything. He could have told the people He was about to do a miracle to prove He was from God. But He prays. He thanks the Father for hearing Him, for being Present. I have often noticed that we set aside time to pray, but then spend a great deal of that time focused on the other people in the room. We talk to them instead of directly to God. Sometimes it is out of a desire to encourage them, or to care for them. Sometimes it is out of a desire to praise God and report what He has done for us, but still, I see in Jesus’ example an important lesson. What people really need is an encounter with God Himself. More than sound doctrine; more than soothing words; more than miracles; what every human soul needs is to come back to the Garden and talk with the Father.

In the Garden Adam and Eve hid from God. Humanity has been hiding its shame and vulnerability and fear from God ever since. We don’t use fig leaves to cover our nakedness or crouch behind actual trees, but we fill up our minds and hearts with other things and tell ourselves we are serving our neighbors, but often we are hiding. We are procrastinating on the conversation we know deep down our souls need, but afraid of how it will go.

We leave very little time in most of our church activities for true prayer that speaks directly to God and acknowledges His Presence in our midst. I think there is something in all of us that shies away from the vulnerability that we feel in His Presence.

Like the Prodigal in Jesus’ parable, only brazen gall and desperate need would drive us to seek some small grace from God after the way we have shunned him and wasted all he has given us, and our expectation is that at best He will make us a slave. Yet those Prodigals who have returned testify over and over again that it is with Joy and Zeal that the Father runs to receive us back! We shy away from the humbling conversations that we need so desperately to have with God (and maybe also with others) yet God longs for the day when we will truly let Him show us His grace.

For me it is imperative that we guard those precious times that we have set aside for prayer and keep Him at the center of them. They are so few already, and so desperately at the heart of what we all need, that any time called a time of prayer must be guarded and kept for that and that alone.

We need fellowship for sure. We need time to get to know each other and what is going on in each other’s lives. We can praise God for all He is doing, and encourage one another through our conversations. But again I say, “If you can say it, you can pray it.” As Jesus taught us, let us say what we need to say to others, but also invite God to be at the center of the conversation.

He always hears us. He never leaves us. Let’s speak to Him, and thank Him for His Presence.

On another note, I have also found that praying together has a way of bonding people together in very special ways. When we let others be privy to the very real and personal conversations that we have with God, and they see and hear Him answer us and speak through us, they become our brothers and sisters.