"I answer, What if he knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need--the need of himself? Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or may not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner. Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need: prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of that prayer. So begins a communion, a talking with God, a coming-to-one with him, which is the sole end of prayer."
-George MacDonald- (quoted in The Pappa Prayer: the prayer you've never prayed by Larry Crabb)
Over the last several years I have come to understand prayer as the means by which a person falls in love with God. Prayer is not a complicated thing--no more (and no less!) complicated than talking with someone you love.
In conversation with your loved one you may ask a favor, express anger, make small talk, or open your inner most feelings of love, fear, or longing. All discussion is allowed. Ultimately, though, the purpose of communicate with your beloved is to grow more in love with him or her.
I'd like to recommend a couple of books along this line: Larry Crabb's The Pressure's Off (which is not particularly about prayer, but it sets the stage)and The Pappa Prayer, The Way of the Pilgrim (Anonymous), Eugene Peterson's Answering God: The Psalms As Tools for Prayer, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God by Dallas Willard, and Prayer by Richard Foster.
I will be out of town at a Youth evangelism conference called Youth WAVE in Austin, Texas. So this will be my last entry for a couple of weeks.
God's blessings!
-Darryl
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