What Works for You?

For many years, I was told "prayer is when you talk to God, and Bible study is when God talks to you" and mostly, that simple answer seemed reasonable. But for a long time, prayer was when I tried to get through a list of what I thought the Lord expected me to cover in prayer, while my mind wandered and when I complained to God about things. My study of the Bible didn't feel much better.

Some years ago I began to talk with God while I walked around the neighborhood. I'm not sure my prayers were any better, but walking helped me focus. The real improvement was when I could get out in the open, look at the creation and see the beauty of God's mind expressed in physical things. David must have felt the same way, perhaps from spending time outdoors as a shepherd and a soldier. Many of the psalms delight in different aspects of the creation. See Psalms 8, 19, 23, 29, among others.

And often, especially during times of difficulty, when I pour out my heart to God, he answers in words or in pictures I can understand. That doesn't occur when I was trying to be formal, or coerce the Lord into doing something -- only when I am genuinely seeking his will and his mind on something, willing to lay down my own agenda in order to understand and follow his. Those answers don't fit the pattern of "me talking to God" that I thought I knew -- but they have been most welcome!

Sometimes prayer is a time of being very still, like the story of the little boy who found a lost watch simply by sitting very quietly and listening for it. In today's noisy world, with traffic and beeping appliances and phones going off at all hours, and our full schedules of chores and places to be, merely stopping the intrusions is a hard task. But that stopping, that stillness, that physical silence -- especially when we stop talking and slow down the frantic pace of our thoughts -- that is a way to humble ourselves before the Lord and hear from him.

Sometimes prayer is gathering as a group and taking turns. The Bible is not against this, and the early church gathered often to pray, probably not just one person praying but many. Hearing the prayers of another of God's children about a topic I care about too, helps me form my own prayers and teaches me the mind of God in different ways than I can learn on my own.

How does your time with God work best? Early in the morning, or at some other time? What method of prayer -- these are only a few of many -- impacts you the most? How do you speak with God most openly, and how does he speak with you most clearly? It's worth figuring it out, and following what works best for you. We'll look at some other ways to communicate with God another time.