Sometimes praying takes no effort at all. Praying can be automatic, instinctive, natural – like breathing. The words are simply there, the posture (kneeling or sitting or standing, hands folded or upheld) is effortless, the communication is easy. God is powerfully present and actively listening. As Marie Barnett sings:
This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me.[1]
Prayer is living and breathing – a part of who I am. Prayer is powerful and beautiful – God with me. Sometimes praying takes no effort at all.
But sometimes I feel mute and deaf and blind to prayer. There are no words in my mouth and the words on the page are meaningless. The Psalms, the Collects, and even the Lord’s Prayer might as well be in a foreign language – there is no understanding. If God is speaking, I’m not hearing anything. My posture is restless – my knees hurt and I lack the strength to hold up my hands. Communication seems all but impossible. In these times when prayer simply escapes me, I long for a breath of fresh air; it feels like I’m gasping for prayer.
Habit leads me to read the Psalms. A pattern of morning prayer leads me to read a Collect or two. After all, I believe:
This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very Word spoken to me.
And yet, sometimes God’s Word simply does not speak to me through these patterns and habits. I breathe in, longing to speak. I gasp, longing to be filled once again with the wind of God. And I still feel breathless – dry and empty – unable to pray.
The amazing thing is that when the senses I rely on don’t seem to be working, God finds another way. Shortly after sunset tonight, as I walked across the bridge over the Haw River, the full moon was reflecting brightly on the water and that wind of God touched me in the beauty of that moment. God found another way. Earlier today, I listened to the FolkPsalm[2] band sing psalms of lament and praise in Goodson Chapel. The Word of God spoke to me in the sharp contrasts: “How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”[3] versus “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.”[4] Together, in the heaviness of one and the joy of the other, God spoke a breath of fresh air. God found another way.
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