After laying a foundation in episode 10, Gina and Ali continue their conversation about prayer, addressing some practical ways to engage in prayer.
Ali Ash is a leader, mentor and life-coach on staff at New Community Church in Vista, CA.
Prayer: A Relational Conversation
Gina:
This is the rest of the conversation with Ali Ash about prayer. The blog was called Prayer Begins Here and I want to lay a very basic foundation for what prayer is and why we pray.
That foundation starts with who God is and who He isn’t, who we are and who we are not. God is good. He’s a loving Father. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and He is also kind and He is pursuing us. He is love. He’s not an angry punisher. He is not a genie in a bottle. He’s not distant and disengaged. He’s not a cosmic force. He’s a person.
We are loved, we are seen, we are known, we are chosen. We are not a mistake, we’re wanted, and we’re being pursued. Prayer is simply a conversation that is relational; It’s not transactional.
In this blog, we’re going to talk a little bit more about what prayer is. If those things are true, if God is loving, if I’m His, if I’m loved by Him, and prayer is a vehicle of relationship, then what does it look like to pray? Ali and I spent a little time talking about some practical things and how those play out, and what we do when we pray.
I hope that you receive some freedom and permission to step in a little farther, and go a little deeper in your personal prayer life to know that prayer isn’t reserved for people who are pastors and leaders or people that seem very spiritual.
All of us are designed and created to have an intimate relationship with our Maker, to hear His voice, to know Him and to be heard by Him.
Gina:
Now that we know that we may have a misunderstanding of what prayer is, and now that we’ve addressed some of the baggage and maybe debunked some of the myths, and we have talked about, the truth of who God is, and the truth of who we are, and those things have a lot of layers.
For those of you who are Christians and have heard some of this language, before we talk about transformation and growing more and more into the image of Jesus, I want to say: it’s not about perfection. It’s about removing all of the barriers and the false things and the lies and the distortions.
It’s about correcting our understanding of who He is and who we are, and the more and more that becomes clearer, the more and more we can receive who He is and His love for us. We can receive who we are in Christ and then have grace and forgiveness for ourselves and other people. Then we are going to become more like Him because we’re joining with Him.
Practically, what does it look like to pray, and to have a healthy prayer life? First of all, you don’t need fancy words. You don’t need ritual. Hear me clearly, I’m not saying that those are bad. We have a friend Justin, who sometimes when he talks and prays, he goes deep and it goes deep and uses beautiful language. My prayers don’t sound like that.
I teach prayer classes and I’ve had so many people, “Oh Gina, I wish I could pray like you.” You know, it’s not about the eloquence. It’s not about the fancy words, some of the most powerful prayers are two or three words. It’s about the posture of the heart.
There is nothing wrong with written prayers and liturgy. I think there was a whole movement in the nineties that kind of shunned liturgy for being very religious. And yes, it can be, anything can become religious. “Religious” is a mindset, and it’s going away from relationship and into the transaction.
Ali:
Like you said, Gina, it’s always about our heart. So when you say, “Well, why do I have to pray then if God already knows my heart?” Because prayer changes us. It keeps our heart soft towards God, and also towards the people that He’s put in our lives. Prayer is powerful.
Not only for us to posture ourselves, to hear God, but also for Him to continue to soften our hearts towards others. We are the salt of the earth, we are walking testimonies to God’s goodness and His love. Prayer surrenders our heart to stay soft towards others as well.
Gina:
I would take that farther and say it’s a vehicle for relationship. So if I’m in a relationship with someone and I never engage in that relationship, then I’m lying to myself, and I’m not in a relationship. I’m married to my husband norm. I know him, a lot of you can know him, you can Google him online and Google norm Stockton. And you can learn a lot about him.
You can learn a lot of information that he was born in Japan, and that he plays bass, that we’ve been married for 28 years, but you don’t know him because you’re not in a intimate relationship like I am. We can finish each other’s sentences. We go to a restaurant and I know exactly what he’s going to order before he orders it, because we’ve put that time into investing knowing one another intimately.
But even in that Norm and I can be home, and we can be sitting on the couch, watching TV and be in each other’s space, but not be in each other’s presence. I can be beside him and not choose to be with him. Prayer is a vehicle of relationship. It’s engagement.
It’s about knowing that He’s there, and then going, “Well, he knows I’m here.” It’s going, “Hey, you’re here. What do you think about this? Where are we going? I’m struggling with something. What are you seeing? Are you, with me? How good you are? It’s allowing Him to be with you, and you intentionally being with Him.
Ali:
It’s revelatory when we step into that. It really opens up and awakens this whole other way of living. Because how often do we say out loud, or hear others say, “I just want to have peace. I don’t want to feel anxious. I just want to feel like I’m walking out God’s will for me, I just want to know what God’s purpose and plans are for me.”
Well, this is the vehicle to those answers: prayer. Prayer is the most vulnerable and authentic way. We put all of our desires on the table and we ask God to meet us there. Then as He meets us there, in only the way that He can, our heart starts to turn to either desiring something different because that’s what prayer does. It aligns you to God’s will, it aligns you to God’s ways.
Or we will feel peace, even though none of our circumstances have changed. So there may be chaos all around us, but now, because we’ve opened our hearts up to that vulnerable place of prayer, knowing that God is safe, knowing that His Presence is with us, knowing that He’s relational. Now, all of a sudden we’re experiencing the peace that surpasses understanding, and that’s what we all desire. Peace is not a one time thing.
I have my husband and I have three boys. There are days where, whether it’s because of family stuff or what’s going on in the world or just our neighborhoods, ‘m putting my hand up multiple times a day saying, “Jesus help me.” It’s not this 20 minutes of opening up my Bible and finding this perfect little spot in my home where no one will interrupt me.
It’s literally moment to moment throughout my day of putting my hand up in the air and saying, “Jesus help me.” It’s bringing the truth that God’s presence is already with me, and now because I’m aware of it, now it changes everything.
The Practicals of Prayer
Gina:
That’s really good. That reminds me of a situation when someone is out with their children, and the child is doing their own thing and they suddenly realize they don’t know where they are. We can see them, but they can’t see us. They panic and search for their parents. It awakens us in that moment of fear and anxiety. But the Father says, “No, no, no, no. I’m right here.” And that is His love and intimacy.
There is no need for fancy words or rituals, it’s just simple. Just talk simply to Him and be honest. We think we need to have these beautiful religious prayers that sound good and holy, but God doesn’t need that. He’s not afraid of our honesty. I think that’s a huge barrier. People think that they need to put on this front, but God is God, and He already knows.
It’s just about being with Him, and being honest to Him, and letting Him be honest back. The most significant prayer life is people who are willing and able to be honest with themselves and with the Lord. Here’s just a couple of things, if you don’t know where to start or what to do.
First, just stop. Sometimes it’s just the chaos in your head, and the thoughts that are going a mile a minute. It may be that you’re busying yourself and avoiding the things that are hard. Just stop.Take a moment and breathe, take a deep breath. When we slow our breath down, it slows our heart rate, it calms our thoughts and our emotions.
Start with being thankful. If you don’t know where to start, start with being thankful. Sometimes when we’re in the hardest places, it forces us to find something. When we have a laundry list of everything that’s wrong, but we make ourselves stop and search for something to be thankful for, it reorients us.
So start with thanks, and that gives way to praise. What is praise? It’s just acknowledging and thinking God for his goodness and who He is. Telling Him you love Him. Telling Him that you’re grateful for the things that you see that are good. I want to keep this out of religious vocabulary, but it’s simply just saying, “Oh, you’re amazing. You’re God, and I’m not.”
Ali:
“Your ways are not my ways.”
Gina:
“And look, the sun sets and the sun rises faithfully and you’re faithful. Regardless of where I am emotionally, regardless of the circumstances in my life, You are the same.” Praise is reorienting us to lift our eyes from the earthly things. If I’m stressed out and there’s a lot going on, I just lift up my face to Jesus, and then I realize that it’s not as chaotic as it feels right in front of my face.
Adoration is a part of praise, It’s pouring out your affection and your love towards God. If you don’t understand what that is, it’s going to grow naturally as you lean in and as you invest in that relationship. Worship is really posturing ourselves that He is God and I am not. “I’m going to worship You because You are Holy. You are good. You are worthy of my attention. You’re worthy of my affection.” It’s that posturing ourselves in humility in worship.
Ali:
I would add, even if it’s not words, a lot of times for me, my body will represent where I’m maybe not allowing God. For example if I’m hunched over, if my eyes are down, sometimes just that is enough for me to realize “Ali, you can step into a place of worship.” And that posture for me, looks like my arms up, my chin up, and I am standing a little taller and a little straighter because now I’ve fully surrendered to God in not just my words, but in my posture.
That can feel awkward. A lot of times it feels awkward to open up your arms and to lift your chin to the sky. But man, that posture for me, puts me in a place of receiving where now I’m just envisioning Him pouring His love into me. I’m receiving His love in ways that I wasn’t making myself available to before when my body was tight and curled up and my head’s down.
Being aware, sometimes our body is one step ahead of us. If you can be aware of that, like Gina said, just stop, breathe, find something, multiple things that you’re thankful for. And that posture of your body can help you step into a place of worship. And even in that, it’s different for all of us. You could be like me where if I’m hunched down then that’s closing off, and so I need to stand up, but for some who are standing up, it may be that they need to be low and need to come down.
This isn’t a prescription, this is, this is freedom. This is meant for releasing, there’s no there’s no formula. I think as people, we just want a formula. I think that’s why we fall into ritual so easily because it’s like, just give me the list of to-dos. We want our checklist, but there’s so much freedom.
Gina:
So you posture yourself, and you can get into this mode of thanksgiving. It’s really just aligning yourself. Take some time to listen. So go on a walk and put in some worship music if you want, or instrumental music, or no music, just silence. Just take some time to just listen. And listening isn’t waiting for the skies to part and thunder.
It’s just giving space to allow the Holy Spirit to direct your thoughts and your mind. You’ll be surprised at the things that come up, the things that you might think of when we orient ourselves on Him, it just changes our perspective. It could be through just an impression through a thought that comes to your mind.
I said this in the podcast with Pete and Patty Shambrook, but I think if you’re a believer and you’ve been in church for a long time, we can get very legalistic about our time with God. We can get very upset about distractions, and think “Oh, I have to keep my mind focused on prayer, and on this. All these thoughts feel distracting, and I need to stop thinking about all these things.”
But I just want to say, you have permission to start with those things, maybe that is the Lord speaking to you. If a friend comes to your heart all of a sudden, someone who you haven’t thought about in a long time, maybe you’re supposed to give them a call or send them an encouraging text, or maybe you’re supposed to pray for them because they’re going through something and you have no idea, but now God’s made you aware that you should pray for your friend.
Or maybe you’re remembering something you said to your husband or your kids the day before that maybe you shouldn’t have said, and now all of a sudden you’re trying to have this prayer time and you’re bothered by that. But that could be the Holy Spirit convicting you that you probably need to go say, you’re sorry, you probably should go and ask for forgiveness. That’s what listening means. Paying attention.
Paying attention to what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, what you’re sensing. And then the other thing is just be with Him, just start to acknowledge and recognize Him. “Wow, Lord. You’re here. I can sense your presence. Thank you for putting Ali on my heart today.” Then I’ll text you something like, “Hey, thinking about you this morning, praying for you.” And then invite Him in.
I’ve been walking with Jesus for a long time and I have to remind myself to ask Him, “Okay, Lord, what are we going to do today? What are you doing?” I need you. I’ve got meetings today. I’ve got friends coming over. My house is a mess. Or my daughter’s going through something. I need You to help me. I need You to be with me so we can do this together.”
And that changes everything. I just want to bring us back to the point: prayer is a gift. It’s a vehicle relationship. It’s not transactional. He’s loving. He knows you, and He sees you, and He wants to be a part of your life.
Ali:
Try it right now. Try it after this ends. You just say, “Lord, I’m here. I want to talk to You more. I want to hear Your voice more. I want it to be relational, and not so formal. I want to grow in my understanding of who You are so I can understand who I am and what You called me to do.” Because guys, that’s the truth. He has good plans for us. He promises to never leave us nor forsake us.
He’s given us a Helper, the Holy Spirit. So as we soften our hearts… and even if I use that word, I realize some of us might have really hard hearts towards God or towards others. That’s okay, too. It is the powerful work of God that we just won’t understand until we’re face to face with Him of how He softens us, but He does. We can turn towards Him even when we don’t think we’re worthy. Because He loves you and that’s irrefutable.
Check out the rest of this conversation: Prayer Begins Here
Ali Ash is a leader, mentor and life-coach on staff at New Community Church in Vista, CA.
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