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 herselfas 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.
Order 7 Ways to Prayhere, including in the US, UK, and Australia. You’ll also find lots of resources for small groups – videos and a leader’s guide – here.
By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.
The first thoughts I had when I saw this painting were that God holds us. We enter a boat and the water keeps us afloat – the image I have is of God’s everlasting arm underneath us, supporting us through not only trials and tribulations but through the joyous times of hope and celebration. (See Deuteronomy 33:27).
And then I looked at the painting again and what captured my attention was the posture of the three figures in the boat. They seem to be searching for something – a path through the fog? Something or someone in the distance, on shore? For sustenance through spotting a fish below? In which case the Scripture text that comes to me is Jeremiah 29:13 about seeking and finding God.
Of course, a combination of the two reflects beautifully on our life with God. We seek and find him and he supports us, holding us while we do so.
Why not take some time to pray through these Scriptures, using the painting as a prompt to pray? I’d love to hear how God leads you through this exercise.
The passage from Deuteronomy 33:27 follows. It forms part of God’s blessing for the tribe of Asher, as he blesses the twelve tribes before the enter the promised land:
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
Here’s the passage from Jeremiah 29. And yes, this includes the often-quoted verse about God’s plans for us. Note that he makes the promise to those who are in captivity, banished there because of their wrongdoing. God rescues them from the consequences of their sin:
10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
I’m grateful to offer this powerful and vulnerable reflection by Sam Richardson, who heads up SPCK, my publisher. You won’t want to miss this, his follow-up from his blog in the autumn.
In my last blog from September, I confessed that my prayer life was at a low ebb, and hoped that Amy would invite me back to report on whether the ideas from 7 Ways To Pray had helped.
I can report that my prayer life is indeed much improved, but not for reasons that I would have liked. I am writing this blog from a hospital room while my wife Sarah has chemotherapy. She first went for tests in October, and that month and the next were a real roller coaster as we feared the worst. We’ve learnt, however, that the prognosis is very positive and Sarah is now going through the long haul of treatment.
Obviously this is not the catalyst for my prayer life that I was hoping for, but it has kickstarted me into praying passionately again (and not just for Sarah and our own family). The fact that a crisis turned me back to prayer got me noticing that the times I’ve prayed the most, and felt the presence of God the most, have been times of difficulty or crisis.
Sometimes these crises can seem relatively mundane, such as one particular example when I was heading to Peru on a mission trip and our team had just missed our flight. At the exact moment as we, gathered in a circle, said ‘amen’, there was an announcement that the flight we thought we had missed was delayed. And sometimes the crises can seem existential, such as Sarah’s illness or the dreadful situation in Ukraine.
From the conversations I’ve had with others, I believe I’m not alone. There’s a significant group out there of crisis pray-ers. Prayer is the first place we turn to when the going gets tough, but it isn’t necessarily as big a part of our lives as when things seem to be going smoothly.
At the same time there also seems to be a second group, that of fair weather pray-ers. People from this group say they are pretty good at getting a consistent rhythm of prayer in their life, but that in crises and difficult times this rhythm can get lost and their confidence can get knocked when they don’t feel their prayers are answered.
Obviously we all want to be constant pray-ers. I am very fortunate to have many of these in my life and to regularly feel very prayed for, which is a wonderful thing. For those who are already constant pray-ers, congratulations and thank you.
For those of us who aren’t, I wonder which of the ideas in 7 Ways To Pray might help us to develop into constant pray-ers?
For us crisis pray-ers, I think the Bible-based prayer is a really good fit. Amy writes in chapter two on lectio divina, and I have been finding the new(ish) Lectio 365 app from 24-7 Prayer a really good way in. While it has a slightly different four-step structure to that outlined by Amy, the ready-made nature and constant availability of it have been very helpful for me.
For those who are fair-weather pray-ers, I think the prayers of lament (described by Amy in chapter five) could be particularly powerful. Claire Musters has blogged movingly about her experience of lament. Tom Wright has written powerfully about it in the context of the pandemic, but the power of lament is equally applicable to the Ukraine situation when it can feel overwhelming to work out how to pray.
So, which kind of pray-er are you?
Sam Richardson is Chief Executive of SPCK, the Christian mission agency working through publishing. He studied Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge and then pursued a career in publishing at HarperCollins and Hodder & Stoughton. Sam is married to Sarah and they have three boys, two cats and a golden retriever. In his spare time he coaches and plays football and he may or may not be retired from running quite fast marathons.
Order 7 Ways to Prayhere, including in the US, UK, and Australia. You’ll also find lots of resources for small groups – videos and a leader’s guide – here.
By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved,
I wonder if you resonate with this painting of my dad’s. I love the splashes of color that provide hope amidst a bleak and stark setting. We might feel overwhelmed with all that we face personally and globally – the invasion of Ukraine, the altercation at the Oscars, the latest variant of coronavirus. And the personal crises we may face.
All of these things can feel like a stripping down. A peeling back. We may feel empty and exposed.
And yet.
And yet.
The light dawns and for a few moments the sky fills with color. What had been a cheerless landscape now pulses with light and joy and hope – if only for a short time. We gasp with joy, seeking to take in the wonder and the glory, all the while giving thanks to God.
I invite you to take a few moments to pray with this beautiful painting. Let your eye move around it and fall on the area that draws you near. How might God speak to you through the art?
You might also wish to ponder some Scripture:
But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7, NIV)
If you’d like the context, that’s interesting too:
Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend. Even with the woman who lies in your embrace guard the words of your lips. For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.
But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. (Micah 7:5–8, NIV)
I’ve long appreciated the Jesus Prayer, although I tend to pray a slightly longer version (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner”). I’ve found this prayer especially helpful if my mind is whirring around and I want to focus on God – perhaps if I’ve woken in the night. If it’s new to you or an old favorite, I hope you’ll pray it soon.
A person’s name is closely bound up with the person whose name it is. That is why the New Testament uses the name of Jesus to mean Jesus himself. It was in Jesus’ name that the disciples performed miracles and exorcisms – they did so, that is, by means of his power. In his name also they baptised – through their actions done in his name Jesus brought people into relationship with himself.
The great Orthodox Churches of the East have a wonderful prayer centred on Jesus’ name: they call it the “Jesus prayer”. No special training or gift is needed before we can use that prayer. Simply settle yourself into a comfortable position. Don’t hunch yourself forward but set your shoulders well back so that the air can get into your lungs. Then close your eyes: breathe in slowly several times so as to relax yourself and then begin saying Jesus’ name; say it in adoration and love, say his name over and over again, breathing slowly, deeply, and regularly all the time.
The full form of the Jesus prayer is as follows:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
We can, of course, shorten that prayer, to “Lord Jesus Christ”; even just “Lord Jesus”. Countless people down the ages have found the Jesus prayer a wonderful prayer – use it regularly and often, and you will find it a marvellous way of deepening your faith and improving your relationship with Jesus.
“Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus”. Set aside time for Jesus every day. Repeat his name slowly, again and again and again, in love and adoration; and more and more will you come to love him without whom our lives are poor and mean but with whom and in whom we find fulfilment.
Edited extract from Don’t fuss, love God, don’t fuss, which Ruth A Bamforth compiled and edited from a selection of the sermons which her late father, Rev’d Stuart Bamforth, left at his death after 52 years as an Anglican priest.
Order 7 Ways to Prayhere, including in the US, UK, and Australia. You’ll also find lots of resources for small groups – videos and a leader’s guide – here.
By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.
Last week I was surrounded in beauty – the gorgeousness of people encountering God through prayer and the wonders of creation with sea, streams, and sky. This week my view is definitely smaller, down to two rooms in our vicarage as I isolate from the family to avoid spreading covid. But I can look at my dad’s amazing art and use it as a pointer for prayer.
I love his abstract take on this stream – I can verily hear the water gurgling along as I inhale deeply. Why not join me in pausing to pray while using a passage from Scripture to focus your mind and heart:
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:37–38, NIV)
Michelle and I may be many miles apart, from California to London, but her warmth and encouraging words make her feel close. She shares movingly about the power of prayer in an unlikely place as she and her son experienced it. Her post is a bit longer than some, but I think you’ll want to brew a cuppa or grab an iced tea as she shares her story…
In the last several years, God has helped me to know His presence with me and within me in ways I wouldn’t have imagined as a young girl. I don’t doubt He’s with me – listening, communicating, doing all that He has planned in my life. He’s with me even in the middle of my waiting, in my anger and sorrow, as He takes my hand and tells me He loves me.
Amy Boucher Pye’s 7 Ways to Pray: Time-Tested Practices for Encountering God has taught me new prayer practices and made some practices I didn’t even realize I was doing more intentional and meaningful. For instance, in John 15, through the story of the vine and its branches, Jesus tells us of our connection to Him and the Father. Amy shares it like this:
Consider how the vine needs the branches, and the branches need the vine: without branches, the vine won’t produce fruit, and without the vine, the branches won’t receive the necessary nutrients to live. This image points to one of the amazing truths of the Christian faith: that God through Christ condescends to make His home in us. That is, although He is all-powerful and all-knowing, He restricts Himself to working in and through us with all of our limitations and failings” (p. 48).
This truth has helped me to see that God is with me – in me and in others – encouraging us to yield to His Spirit so we can produce the sweetest of His fruit.
Being the mother of my son, my gift from God (neurodiverse, now 24 years old, and the most awesome person I could ever hope to know), has nurtured practicing the presence of God and the practice of examen in my life. As happened one day at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles)…
I took in the dingy, crowded space filled with many. Standing. Sitting. Waiting. We were grateful the sun was shining, shedding a little bit of sparkle and warmth on this otherwise somewhat chilly government building. My then 19-year-old son, Jared, was taking his driver’s permit test. And life being the mixed bag of joy and sorrow that it is, this event was an occasion for both. As a parent of child with learning and developmental differences, I’ve experienced a brand of the joy/sorrow blend that is all its own. Joy and sorrow are inextricably linked. They are not only each other’s ally, they are life-long pals. And you just never know when they will show up to the party, even when the party is at the local DMV.
We were both a little twitchy – a frighteningly lovely mix of excitement, trepidation, hope, and fear that accompanies adventures and new endeavors. Having forgotten the umpteenth piece of documentation the DMV requires to verify we really are who we say we are required us to run home. “I’ll save your spot,” the employee said. We thanked him and hoped our doubtful facial expressions didn’t belie our optimistic gratitude. We reentered the building and the stern-faced, kind employee who said he would save our scheduled appointment time was true to his word. With an almost imperceptible, expectant smile he waved us forward as if he had been looking for us to walk through the front door. We thanked him from the bottom of our hearts but didn’t want to make a fuss.
On to the next gentleman employee, proudly clad in a USC t-shirt with the low hum of Earth, Wind and Fire playing in the background. “My cousin went to USC,” Jared offered. “Oh yeah? My son goes there.” My son’s simple words opened the door to a conversation that linked us beyond the impersonal to connection. The employee could see we enjoyed his choice of music and took us under his wing.
Now you may be thinking this is all a bunch of hooey. After all, who gets taken care of so lovingly at the DMV? Well, you don’t know my son. In him resides THE SON, Whose Love covers all and bridges any gap. Even between joy and sorrow. Even between the minutiae and most important. Even at the DMV. And Jared’s heart – a willing and reliable vessel for the Love of Jesus – spilled all over the DMV that day.
With a pointing finger, our friend shuttled us to the unforgiving folding chairs that would be our perch for the better part of the day. Here we sat nervously waiting for Jared’s number to come up. Finally, it was his turn. “Good luck, my love. You’re gonna do great!” I said with a touch of confidence and hesitant hope. “Thank you, Mom,” he delivered with a look of both “Duh” and “Do you really think so?” Life. Mixed bag, indeed.
As he settled in front of the computer, Jared asked questions and sought assurance from the employees who offered answers and comfort without reservation. Being neurodiverse, Jared processes information in his own timing, which can sometimes be perceived by others as slow. But this just gave him time to make more friends with the employees. They had already formed an informal rooting section and he hadn’t even started the test. By the end of several hours, complete with a malfunctioning computer, he had a cheering section who sent him smiles, prayers, and good vibes. The patience, kindness, gentleness, and encouragement of these employees was palpable.
As I waited for my son to complete the test, our USC t-shirt-wearing friend left his post to see if Jared was doing okay. He asked me “if he could comprehend, because he seems like he can comprehend.” I was taken aback because we’d established a connection with him, and his words left me feeling oddly betrayed. Comments like that still sting – and I’ve been fielding them now for 24 years. I viewed this gentleman from my lens of frustration, impatience, sorrow, and yes, my own bias. But he was genuinely interested and cared. It wasn’t him. It was lifelong pals, Joy and Sorrow being themselves; doing their thing; working in my corner of the world.
After I blinked back the tears and refocused, I could see it for what it was – an opportunity for the fruit of the Spirit to enter in. Aah yes, so nice to see you, Joy. Thank you for rejoining your friend, Sorrow. Who just blindsided me, by the way. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like she’s always doing that, though she means no harm. These two gave me yet another chance to share the truth humbly and gently about neurodiversity and cognitive processing skills. Slower processing doesn’t mean nonexistent. And an individual’s seemingly halting verbal skills often don’t match his limitless capacity for understanding and expression. Jared is the poster boy for these truths.
As joy and sorrow work together, they always manage to give way to the ultimate – the joy of Jesus through His Holy Spirit that shines through my son. The Holy Spirit and my son conspire regularly and manage to bring out the best in darn near everyone. My son invites each person he encounters to be a better version of themselves. He engages with others expecting the best and I’ve witnessed over and over how people rise to this loving expectation. Jesus, through my son, transforms people right before my eyes and I get to be a part of the miracle – God’s lifesaving, limitless, all-inclusive Love that produces in each of us the fruit of His Spirit – “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). Our DMV experience was no exception.
After a long day, Jared and I walked back into the sunlight, a mom with her permit-wielding son, proud and relieved. On this day, in the DMV, God created for me yet another opportunity to know joy and sadness a little more intimately. Yes, I mourn at how my son (and others with special needs) is seen and not fully understood and appreciated by much of the world. But I delight in the way, without fail, he, through the love of Jesus, brings a smile to the people with whom he interacts. I lament at how much harder he works than his neurotypical peers, but I rejoice in how his efforts gather a cheering section and unite people in encouragement, kindness, patience, gentleness, and support. And most of all, I weep with joy in the great undeserved blessing our Holy Father has given me at being able to share this side of heaven with my Spirit filled, joy-generating Jared!
Michelle Vergara gratefully shares life with Derek, her husband of 30 years, and Jared, her son of 24 years, both of whom make her laugh and help her daily to be who God intends her to be. She also enjoys the fun and sometimes loud company of her 6 Italian brothers and sisters, nieces, and nephews. Michelle has worked for 35 years in education with children ages birth through college who are neurodiverse with developmental and learning differences. She currently works at Stowell Learning Center, a private cognitive educational program in Southern California. The children and families she has the privilege of working with always inspire her. Michelle enjoys her time with Jesus; spending time with her husband, son, and extended family; singing; reading (especially about health, wellness, nutrition, and the brain); writing; and spending as much time as possible at the beach.
Order 7 Ways to Prayhere, including in the US, UK, and Australia. You’ll also find lots of resources for small groups – videos and a leader’s guide – here.
I’m currently praying so much for a friend going through a devastating time. You may be too. I’ve found such help in Ros’ gentle description of a way of praying for others that helps us release them fully to Jesus and his love. I hope you too will try out this way to pray.
I was brought up to pray wordy prayers. There was a lot of repetition, stock phrases that everyone used. “If it be Thy will” was one, along with “In Jesus’ name, Amen.” When I joined a Brethren assembly at the age of sixteen, they added another: “If our Lord tarry.” I got quite excited the first time I heard that one. Were they really expecting Jesus to come back before the event that we were praying for? I remember feeling a thrill of excitement that these people really thought Jesus might return in the course of the next week. Sadly, I came to realise it was just a formula of words, not something that anyone really expected or was preparing for.
This pattern of prayer continued into my adulthood, but over time I found myself facing situations that no amount of words, still less formulaic ones, could adequately express. How to pray for the young friend whose wife of two years was dying of cancer? Or my own severely disabled child as she faced yet another operation? Or the childless friend who would have given her eye teeth to parent a severely disabled child, or indeed any child?
Reading Proverbs one day I had a moment of revelation. Proverbs 18.10 says, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and are safe.” It was a verse I already knew – we sang a song based on it at church. But reading it that day, it suddenly dawned on me that the name of Jesus is not something we append to our prayers. It is a place, a strong tower, a place of safety from inside which we can pray effective prayers. Did Jesus not tell us to ask “in my name”? “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do.” (John 14.13)
I began to pray differently, using my imagination under the Holy Spirit’s direction. I would visualise a strong, impregnable tower, to which I was granted admission. I would enter the tower, close the door and sit in silence. As I pictured this, I would focus on Jesus whose name this tower was. I would stay in silence and stillness, occasionally interrupted by an expression of praise or love to Him.
When I had a complete sense of being in that place of safety, of His presence there with me, I would picture whoever I wanted to pray for. I would see myself leading them into the strong tower and holding them there with me inside it. It was as if, in that place of safety, I was silently presenting them to the One who knew far better than I did what they needed. No words were necessary. I was asking on behalf of that person within the name of Jesus, and I knew I was heard and answered. No formula, just a place where God hears and answers prayer. It has been my preferred way of praying for people ever since.
Ros Bayes is a writer, a former teacher and mother of three daughters. In June of last year, 9 months after her marriage to Keith Dakin, she retired from her work as Training Resources Developer at Christian disability charity Through the Roof. Ros has written A level textbooks on Philosophy and Ethics, publications for churches on disability, devotional books and a novel, The Well is Deep, based on the story in John 4 of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.
Order 7 Ways to Prayhere, including in the US, UK, and Australia. You’ll also find lots of resources for small groups – videos and a leader’s guide – here.
By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.
As we continue to wrestle with the news out of Ukraine, our hearts are heavy and burdened. That there would be a Russian air strike on a maternity and children’s hospital is barbaric. As you cry out to God, you might want to pray alongside some pictures of a photographer who is currently in Ukraine. He manages to capture moments of beauty in the midst of these bleak scenes.
Or you can use my dad’s winter painting of a stream that flows in stark surroundings. Let your eye wander and settle as you ask God to help you notice something in the painting or in your heart. You could ponder the words of Jesus, which he shares with his friends after they shared their last supper together:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
In fact, you may wish to read the whole of John 16.
May God strengthen our hearts to believe that what he says is true. And may his peace break out all around the world.
Prayer with movement – I so appreciate how Anna shares different ways for us to engage with God through our bodies. After all, as she notes, we might well be using certain physical motions to pray anyway, such as folding our hands or closing our eyes. I’m looking forward to trying out her ideas, and hope you will too.
Connecting prayer and movement together can seem out of the box, but we already always use movement in our prayers. Do you close your eyes? Bow your head? Clasp your hands? They are all intentional movements that you do as you come into the presence of God for a conversation.
I love sharing with others how they can encounter more of God through adding movement to their prayers and relationship with God. At UC Grace, a Christian Dance Company that I run, we define prayer movement as…
Your body’s reaction to drawing closer to God. The external display of an internal feeling and preparation for a conversation. Its nuances that only you and God know. Fleeting moments when you choose to acknowledge your connection and conversation with God. The reality of moving through life sometimes 100 miles an hour but still always doing the same thing when you choose to pray. To have that conversation and allow intention into the time of response with God.
Put simply, prayer movement allows us the chance to pray without words, letting movement tell the story instead. Sometimes this can be influenced with music, while other times music isn’t necessary to capture and share what God is speaking through the movement.
Here are two ways that I have found useful to develop my practice of prayer movement. It can take a while to get into the rhythm of doing it, so give it time and allow God to move and work bit by bit.
Write it, learn it, move it
Think about one thing that you would like to pray for currently. Write it down into a simple written prayer. It’s important to use key words that describe what the issue is, any emotions involved, and any encouraging words. Don’t make it complicated.
Next, take the time to learn that prayer off by heart. This helps it to become ingrained so you can anticipate what is coming next. When you speak, you naturally emphasise certain words, so start to recognise the words that you are emphasising. These are your movement starting points.
Begin to put specific movements to the words that stand out to you in your prayer and practice them one after the other. The movements can be a literal interpretation of the word or something abstract. Only you know it’s meaning; it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks it is.
For example, a prayer I regularly pray is about patience, energy and joy. Three things I can struggle with daily. ‘Father God, equip me with patience to withstand the day, energy to sustain all that I need to do and joy to flow in conversations and relationships.’ I emphasise those three words I mentioned previously doing the following movements –
Patience: Standing feet in neutral (hip width apart), inhaling a deep breath and opening my hands out to receive.
Energy: Bringing my hands together and rolling them over each other, taking them above my head and then opening them out into a high V shape.
Joy: Swinging my arms down from high into a figure of 8 and doing some hops.
This is my movement prayer. That’s how simply you can build yours. I can spend some time doing this slowly, fast, big, small, anyway I want. Sometimes I will speak the words, other times I won’t. but I treat it as an offering and invitation for a conversation with God.
Let a song be your prayer dance
Words in songs can be very powerful. Often you might find yourself either picking up on one or two key phrases or becoming enveloped in the song completely. Worship songs bring a different layer to our prayers. Many are written as heartfelt prayers, words directly from scriptures or specific words from God. This can be a natural way move your prayer.
Think about some of the songs that you love – what parts of them are your prayer right now. Take some time to respond to those words, and, just like I mentioned above, learn them. Then in those moments when you need to remember that prayer you can simply move it – without the need for music.
As I’ve journeyed with prayer movement, I’ve experienced a closeness with God that’s hard to describe. Praying can sometimes be hard work. But when I choose to use movement instead, I feel freedom, a change in the atmosphere, and a joy that sparks a desire to keep seeking Jesus.
I hope you enjoy have the chance to experience this too.
Anna is dancer, teacher, choreographer and writer. She has two crazy children and a husband in the military. Anna is the author for Jesus for Kids: Teaching Dance and Sharing Faith, and Movement, Prayer and Scripture is due for release at Easter. Anna’s passion is to teach and share her knowledge about the interaction between dance and movement and how that exploration helps us to have a deeper conversation with God. She runs regular trainings, workshops and dance weekends and blogs at www.ucgrace.co.uk/Blog. She loves the outdoors, growing her own food and sewing clothes. You can find her on Instagram, Facebook and at her website.
Order 7 Ways to Prayhere, including in the US, UK, and Australia. You’ll also find lots of resources for small groups – videos and a leader’s guide – here.
