Beginning Again: Talking With God
We have good intentions and resolves and one thing so many of us want is a deeper relationship with God. It is a longing that comes from our hearts but we don’t always know what to do with it.
Below are a few hints and resources to get us started – or re-started – talking to God. It sounds simple, so why does it get complicated?
The good news is that God is the one who really wants to talk with us. God wants us to feel that he loves us with a bottomless love and is just waiting to listen to anything we want to say. Further proof of this good news: It was God who sparked our hearts to make us want to respond to him in a newer way.
What is standing in our way?
I just don’t know where to begin. We can reflect on our prayer and what we mean by prayer. Sometimes the most difficult journey in prayer is the short distance from our heads to our hearts. We might enjoy reading theology and spirituality books and websites, but it can draw us into concepts and ideas about God rather than feeling in our hearts how much we are loved by God. The shift in focus happens when we move from “saying prayers” to praying in the sense of entering into a close, personal relationship, which centers on a sense of closeness, accompaniment and intimacy.
Prayer is really just conversation with someone who loves us more than we can imagine. What do we want to thank God for? What do we worry about? What are we facing today? What do we want to ask of God? Speak, then listen.
I don’t have a minute free all day – when can I possibly pray?
Spending 30 minutes in silent meditation is wonderful, but most of us can’t do that in our lives. But we all can find small “in-between” moments in our lives when we can find a greater intimacy with God. It means looking for the tiniest spaces in our day when we can simply lift our hearts to God.
St. Ignatius encouraged his followers to be “Contemplatives in Action,” “seeking and finding intimacy with God, in all things,” and we can do that by continually tucking small prayer spaces into our days. Developing this pattern in our days can help us feel accompanied by God all day long.
Here are a few suggestions. Which ones might work for me today?
- Brushing teeth is something we do every day for a few minutes. If we transform that time into a simple dialog with God, it can begin and end our day in prayer.
- A drive in the car can become a brief retreat if we turn off the radio and use that time to have a conversation with God.
- A regular shower or bath time can be the perfect, undistracted spot to connect with the One who loves us.
- We can pray walking to a meeting, crossing a street or heading into a store.
- As we reach to answer a phone, a 2 second prayer for the person calling can change my interaction with the caller.
- If we find our mind wanders, gently transform it into a prayer by saying to God, “I am distracted by the meeting I have today. Let me tell you what I am worried about.” Or, “I can tell I am preoccupied by my relationship problems with my brother. Please give me the grace to forgive him.” We can take our distractions to God and ask for help.
- Ask, “Where is my focus, on me or on God?”
Here are a number of links to pages on this website that help us develop the habit of prayer.
Praying in Times of Crisis
A Matter of the Heart: Prayer as Relationship
A Renewed Personal Encounter with Jesus
Finding Our Way Back Home:
Getting Un-Stuck in Prayer Life
Praying As We Age
Praying the Psalms |
