Complaint #001: Prayer

I'm starting this blog off with a bang. I've recently realized that I'm not a fan of the term "prayer" and how, in general, the Christian community handles it.

A little background: At its core, Christianity is a lifestyle centered on creating a relationship with the one, true God. It's not merely a set of rules and regulations to obey for the reward of getting to heaven. Life is meant to be the journey of creating and building a relationship with God.

It is because of this that I have come to dislike the term "prayer". Denoting an action as "prayer" automatically makes it a separate entity from other, more relationship-oriented words: "conversing", "speaking", "discussing".

However, we're all smart people; we know what synonyms are, so why is prayer any different than the other words? So maybe the actual word "prayer" isn't to blame, but rather, how we use it. Herein lies the issue: the general public uses the verb "pray" and most often associates it with the preposition "to". We pray to God. We pray to Jesus. This is problem. We need to fix our mindset and turn it from "to" to "with". "to" denotes a single direction; "with" creates mutual interaction. How much better do you feel, how much more do you feel appreciated, when you're "talked with" rather than "talked to"? The term "relationship" is predicated on the fact that there are two parties and they are both involved.

On top of this, we need to make our prayer like our conversations with others. Do you pray in the same manner that you talk to the people you love? How much more loving should your conversation with God be when it's compared with your conversations with other humans? If I had a spouse to whom I spent all of my communication (or any significant portion) setting out my list of problems and asking her to fix them, I don't think she'd feel too loved. Don't get me wrong, praying for things we want to see happen through the work of God is an important part of prayer (heck, this blog is centered on making worthwhile complaints), but our focus should be on the love and appreciation of Him and refining our relationship with him (unfortunately, I don't think I'm qualified to write a blog on love, at least one that will be of any use to anyone).

So, pray/talk/speak/converse with God. Focus on the relationship, not on your problem list (and by shifting your focus, notice how many of your problems go away/don't matter). Listen for His responses (this takes good discernment). Grow.