How to Pray
The Book - How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People by Pete Greig
I attempted to read Saint Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle for this month’s post. That did not go very well. To be honest, my current brain capacity is pretty much overtaken by the school year starting. I wasn't going to do the book justice, so I shelved it with the rest of my TBR.
Thus, I decided to switch to another book that I had actually not planned on reading for the blog this year at all. It had come across my radar when it was referenced in another book I did read this year. I believe it was in Tyler Staton’s book, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools.
Pete Greig’s How to Pray is truly, as the subtitle says, a simple guide for normal people on how to pray. There are 12 chapters that go through an acronym for pray: P- pause, R- rejoice, A- ask, Y-yield (it’s much like the ACTS practice I’ve mentioned before).
It is similar in some ways to many of the other books I have read this year, but I do like how conversational the style was and just how clear it was in introducing the different prayer concepts. I found myself marveling at how I have picked up so many books on prayer this year, and each one has basically talked about the same things, just in different ways. I’m finding that more and more prayer really isn’t some mysterious practice we have to figure out. It’s just something we do. And we truly do have all the tools at our fingertips to pray.
I think I am sometimes afraid of saying the wrong things, praying for the wrong things, or not being not being understood correctly. I forget that God truly knows me inside and out. King David tells us this in Psalm 139:
“Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I stand up;
you understand my thoughts from far away.
You observe my travels and my rest;
you are aware of all my ways.” (v. 1-3)
God knows where our hearts are at, and even if we’re not saying the right things, He knows what needs to happen. The times our prayers don’t get answered, or they don’t turn out the way we hoped, God is still good. That doesn’t always mean that the things we are seeing or experiencing are always good, but God is still working. He is still in control, and if we don’t understand it right now or even in this lifetime, we can still trust He is good. The times we don’t understand can be uncomfortable and even sometimes heartbreaking. It can be the hardest thing in the world to trust that God is good, but that is the truth we must cling to.
One of my favorite aspects of this particular book is that at the end of each chapter, Greig writes about a hero of prayer. Each “hero” is known for a different aspect of prayer and fits with whichever prayer concept Greig focused on in the previous chapter. It was inspiring to read their stories, to see who they were, who they became, and how they became those people. They were all quietly influential, praying for their families or communities, but in many cases, their prayers became something world-changing without any effort on their part. They simply focused on God.
I think that’s one thing I’ve noticed across these different books, and this book in particular drives it home: prayer is a call to know God, to sit with him day in and day out, to just be with him. Talk to him about our lives. Listen for how he responds.
When Greig referenced listening to God, he wrote, “prayer is a living conversation with a loving God, which means that we must listen as well as talk” (151). At another point, he writes, “most people today miss the voice of God not because it’s too strange but because it’s too familiar” (161). I thought that was such an interesting comment because so often we are afraid of not hearing God, of not knowing what he’s telling us, but the truth is that many times we already know his voice.
We already hear Him and have His presence with us. One of the chapters in this book was all about the form of prayer called contemplation. In this type of prayer, the focus is put back on God. It’s not necessarily praying for things or about things. We’re just being in God's presence and knowing him. I really loved that because the better we know Him, the more we will learn to recognize His voice, especially when He often communicates with us in ways that are familiar to us.
If you are interested in learning more about the different prayer practices, the book is written to work alongside Greig’s “Toolshed.” His website www.prayercourse.org walks you through the concepts in the book, and each chapter references specific topics in the course. Greig also included a thorough resource list of books that accompany each topic in the book. This is, of course, problematic for me because, while there were a handful on there I had read, there were far more I had not. Now my reading list is just that much bigger.
Finally, I want to mention how astonished I've been by how emotional reading these books has been for me. Seeing how God interacts with people has moved me to tears more than once. It chokes me up and fills my heart in a way that not many other things do. I want that kind of interaction with God, and I want that level of communication and adoration of Him present in my daily life.
At the end of the day, prayer is about being with God. It’s not up to you or me how things will turn out. All we need to do is focus on God and live the life that He has placed us in.
My prayer practice for you this month is a simple one. Spend some time talking with God as you would a close friend. Take time to pause and listen. Just be in His presence.
