“Cupboard Love” by Clare O’Driscoll: 7 Ways to Pray blog series

What an inviting, guilt-reducing post by Clare about how God yearns for us to come to him with our prayers, as messy as they are. I’m sure you’ll be encouraged as you read.

“Cupboard love!” cried my mum, smiling despite herself as we told her how wonderful she was. “You’re only saying that because you want another slice of cake.”

At first, I didn’t quite understand the idea of cupboard love – that gush of praise heavily laden with the hope of personal gain. My eyes would always be drawn to the old pantry door in the corner of our Edwardian kitchen, its shelves stashed with baking ingredients and not-so-secret supplies of cheap cooking chocolate.

She was right. Of course we loved her, but this particular declaration was loaded with ulterior motive. And although we were joking, there really can be an expectation in life that you have to butter people up before they give you what you want.

And so, with a similar dose of childhood misunderstanding, it sometimes felt like this was how I was taught to pray. Praise before petition! Make sure you proclaim how wonderful God is before you ask for that second slice of cake.

While I always agreed with the concept – recognising God’s greatness before rushing in with requests – I found myself struggling with the practice. I struggled, still do struggle, to do things in the right order. While my soul spontaneously responded with thanks when good things happened and my heart regularly burst into praise at the beauty of creation, I met with inner resistance when I tried to follow ‘how to pray’ instructions. ‘Praise before petition’ sometimes felt a bit too much like cupboard love, like I had to butter God up before I stood a fighting chance of getting any attention. It became less about a genuine loving conversation and more about the formula, and I longed for deeper authenticity.

The thing is, I’m a messy pray-er. I’m inconsistent. I forget to pray when I’ve planned to. I stumble over my words in spontaneous spoken prayer. I can’t always keep my mind on theme, finding myself planning my next meal when I thought, was absolutely sure, I was earnestly praying for some serious world issue.

But thankfully, my haphazard praying seems to make little difference to God’s omnipotence. It makes little difference to how God hears and responds. I am really not great at this, and yet, God hears me. God knows me – the messy inconsistent me – and wants that me, coming as I am. In real prayer, like in real relationship, we have to be who we are before God. When we are, we can find ourselves full to overflowing with breath-catching peace.

And when I stopped feeling guilty about how messy and inconsistent I was, I realised something else. Something crucial. The structure was not there to catch me out or send me on a guilt trip. It was there to free me and open the path to God. It was there to make my prayer life more authentic, not less.

God asks nothing of us but ourselves, our true selves, our honest presence. We can come to our Creator at any time, and pray in any order. But what I am learning, gradually and perhaps a little reluctantly, is that when we do take the time to thank and praise him, even if it’s not our immediate gut reaction, it opens something up, releases something deep within us.

In Amy’s book, her simple explanation of the Ignatian Examen, which begins with thankfulness, sparked in me a fresh reminder to be grateful. Rather than a duty to tick off, praise and gratitude clear a way within us. When I do it, not from dull routine but out of genuine love, those moments of thankfulness lead me into a wide open space where there is room to be free and talk openly and honestly with my God.

As messily and inconsistently as I like!

Clare O’Driscoll is a language tutor and freelance writer who lives in West Sussex with her family. She loves the sea and whizzes down there at every opportunity, currently feeding this love by embarking on a new writing and art project based on beach cafés.

She blogs at www.thewaywardfish.com and Instagram and is also on the team of volunteer editors at magnet magazine.

Order 7 Ways to Pray here, including in the US, UK, and Australia. You’ll also find lots of resources for small groups – videos and a leader’s guide – here.