Mind, Body & Spirit > Prayer > How To Pray

How to Pray
by Leonard Sweet, PhD

Our direct uplink (or better, surround-link) to the Almighty is called prayer. Prayer is the primal and primary religious act. Prayer is the trigger mechanism that releases God's will in our life and world. Prayer is the art of hole-punching the sky so that "as it is in heaven" becomes an earthly reality. As with all high-powered, high-voltage sources, prayer mandates certain vectors.

The first prayer vector is one we largely abandoned in the high modern world: when you pray, change your posture.

Parents tend to teach their children correctly: pray with body before mouth. Just as a child learns to make signs with hands before opening mouth, so all children of faith must learn to change posture before entering into a season of prayer. Whether it's a move to a standing, sitting, kneeling, bowing, or prostrate position, the change in posture signifies a change in one's stance in relationship to the divine and a readiness to open channels to the most powerful force in the universe. In fact, in some cultures it's the tradition to stand in prayer before eating.

The second prayer vector: when you pray, prepare to be changed. God gives us the means for our mission, not the means for our cravings and lusts and wishes. When you pray for the means to do what God is calling you to do, that prayer is answered. Watch out.

You can't pray for people without being changed by those prayers. A pastor taking another parish spoke these words of warning to the congregation in his good-bye sermon:

Sometime I'd like to hear someone say, "Pray for me," and have the person they're asking say, "No, I'd be afraid of doing that. It would require us to become too connected. If I prayed for you I would no longer be able to objectify you and it would change our relationship in ways I would find unsettling. Praying for you would also pull me out of my narcissistic selfishness and force me to contemplate the ineffable power of God in my life which would also be uncomfortable. So thank you, but I just can't."

To pray for someone is to enter into a reciprocal relationship of life transformation.

The third prayer vector: each one of us will pray differently. No two people have the same devotional life. Each one of us connects with God differently.

The fourth prayer vector is to pray without ceasing. This means first and foremost a life steeped in prayer. In the early church they prayed the Paternoster (the "Lord's Prayer, " or what I call the Disciples' Prayer) three times a day. It was daily, not a Sunday prayer. I am a big fan of short, sharp prayers, books of which were called in the sixteenth century a "quiverful" (pharetra). How full is your "quiver" of sentence prayers? Take out one arrow from your quiver when you leave hotel rooms and let it fly. As you look back to see if you left anything, pray for the next person who will occupy the room after you check out.

The fifth prayer vector: make all of life a prayer vector. The greatest ambition of my life is not so much to pray the Lord's Prayer as it is to become the Lord's Prayer. The ultimate in answered prayer is for all of life to be made into a moment.

This is the definition of "having it all." Of course, no one can literally "have it all." All you can have is what you are willing to sacrifice for, value most, pray about, and pay the price for. When everything I do becomes a prayer offered to God, then I will go from praying the Lord's Prayer (Disciples' Prayer) to becoming the Lord's Prayer. That's the ultimate in "having it all."

Excerpted from "Soul Salsa" by Leonard Sweet, PhD