Talking to God

Posted by: Megan Griffith

If you were to ask me how I felt about my spiritual life, I would tell you I read my bible regularly, I listen to all kinds of podcasts to immerse myself in knowledge, I love worship time and make church a priority in my life, I spend countless hours actively getting involved in women's lives and involved in fellowship and I set aside part of our weekly income for tithe. It looks good. But the part that's missing, the most important piece of the whole puzzle, is prayer. Because my prayer life is... meh.

It's hard.

I pray. But I feel like I get so wrapped up in the formality of it all and worrying about if I'm doing it right that I just skip over that part some times. Or if someone asks me to pray for them, I'll do a quick, "Hey God- you just heard what they asked me to pray for, so uh... ditto."

I have a brother that is one semester away from a Master of Divinity. Not only is that quite possibly the coolest degree name you could ever put on a resume, but the guy just EXUDES righteousness. Blessing the enchiladas includes eloquently praising God for his sovereignty over our lives and the glory of the cross, which sure as heck knocks, "rub-a-dub-dub thank for the grub. Yay God!" out of the water. In my less-than-righteous days, I would roll my eyes every time we bowed our heads because I knew it would be a sermon before I got to eat meatloaf. Now, it's kind of intimidating because I don't talk like that, and I'm kind of afraid that God will be less satisfied with my prayer.

In recognizing this fault in my walk with the Lord, I did what any normal obsessive compulsive person would do: I researched the crap out of it. I studied blogs, sermons, podcasts- you name it. The number one thing I found is that prayer is communication- it's conversation, and like any conversation, it's motivated by relationship. I'm not going to have an intense conversation with a total stranger, and I'm not going to be affected by someone who I don't talk to on a regular basis. Reflecting this in my life, I realized when I'm faced with a problem, the first people I call are my husband, my mom and my friends, in that order. It's always under the guise of being wise and seeking counsel, but God is rarely the first phone call I make. I may talk to Him about it, but only after I've had conversations with my go-to people and tried to work it out for myself.

Really, it should be the polar opposite. Steele Crosswhite said, "prayer is an overflow response to our relationship with God." I think the most important word here is "relationship." Through Jesus we have the freedom to belong to God as children and not be enslaved by our sin (Galatians 4:21-31). It isn't about talking to a distant deity. God is our Father.

This changes everything.

I don't talk to my dad like this: "Dear wonderful father of mine who art in McKinney, Texas, seated in a recliner, master of all things Tivo; if it would be to your glory, may I have $20?"

No, I say, "Hey Dad, can I borrow 20 bucks?"

Likewise, God is our Dad. He WANTS us to talk to Him, whether the stuff is big or small. He loves us and He LIKES us. He wants to be part of our lives. It doesn't really matter if we speak to Him eloquently or if we groan because we don't know what to say (Romans 8:26). He doesn't only require the big prayers, like asking Him to spare someone from death, He wants the small prayers, like asking to help find a parking spot at Target. The point is it's a conversation that expresses the relationship that the Father has with His kid. He is a part of everything and wants to be a part of your everything.

Something I've also discovered on this journey to understand the conversation between God and me is that you can't outscream God. It's an intense idea when you think about it. A lot of times I'm only ready to go to God when I'm calm and at peace. But that's not real life- sometimes I'm ridiculously angry about what life throws at me. I take it out on my husband, I call my mom crying and venting, I freak out on my friends. And I'm back at square one. God is not the first phone call I make. But at my weakest, most terribly painful moments, my husband failed to soothe me, my mom kept saying the wrong thing and my friends didn't even know what to say. But God was there. He knows better than anyone and He wants to be the one I vent to. At those moments, it's not pretty and it's not eloquent, but it's real and it's passionate. Relationships are not all happy and springtime, sometimes they are digging through the mud, and that goes for the relationship with God too. He can take it. He WANTS to take it.

I love Psalm 116:2- "Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath!" It's amazing when you really think about it- the God who created the entire universe and is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-being, wants to listen to us. He wants to be in conversation with us. When faced with that logic, it's crazy that people (myself included) wonder why we have to pray to God if He already knows what we're going to pray for and what's going to happen. The truth is, we GET to pray to God. We have the unique privilege that no other creature on Earth has to be able to actively hang out with the Creator and be best friends ALL THE TIME. When faced with that perspective, my prayer life turns from being an obligation, to being something I want to do before hanging out with friends, before sand volleyball, before going on a date, before walking the dog- anything. Thanks, God, for giving me this pizza that I'm about to eat. Thanks, God, for giving me this phone I'm about to text on. Thanks, God, for giving me this breath that I'm going to use to make a bad joke with. Hey, God, what did you think about Glee last night? Hey, God, can you help me find my car keys? He's prepared to revolutionize my life, and all I have to do is keep up the conversation.