Joy of January Day 7: Prayer

Prayer.

What is it?

As January marches onward, churches and Christian non-profits are leading their fellowships in weeks of prayer and fasting, seeking the Lord's face for this next year. What does that even mean? I have been participating in an organization's prayer week this past week and next week my church will be holding a week of fasting. Striving to be committed to prayer I have ventured to my school's prayer room a couple times this week, participated in corporate prayer, and even just sat in my room, all with the intentions of praying. However, every time I sit down to pray, I am hit with the unnerving realization that I literally have nothing to say. My mind is blank. Exhausted by my day in and day out thinking, I simply sit there with absolutely nothing to say. I know I could make something up to force out, but then it would be just that: forced, and can forced prayer really be considered real prayer?

If I were to revert to my young Sunday School days I would know that Prayer is the act of talking with God. It's supposed to be a conversation with me and the most high. I've also heard it's supposed to be a time of laying down one's burdens. Still, others have claimed it's when we tell the Lord our concerns with the anticipation of his answer. I have heard prayers of petition, claim, and intercession. Nonetheless, this last week I have been dumbfounded about the idea of prayer. If prayer is supposed to be me talking with God, and I sit down and have nothing to say, am I doing it right?

I have been questioning, mulling the topic over and over in my head. Then tonight I went to a prayer vigil. Seeking direction, but unsure how, I simply decided I was open to being taught how to pray by the Lord. The Prayer room was dimly lit by various lamps, and had 6 stations to focus on different aspects of prayer. There was a small group of us gathered for a corporate prayer and as soon as Amen was said we dispersed around to the different stations.

Everyone else took a station until there was only one left, and this was the one I was left to. It was the communion station. A pile of pillows, a Bible, a Lutheran Liturgy, and the Eucharist. I sat down on a large pillow and pulled my knees up to my chest. That's when I noticed a sheet of paper off to the side. "Teach us how to pray" it ready, followed by the Lord's prayer. Irony reeked in this station as I read the words:

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil,
for thine is the kingdom,
and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.

The words were sweet upon my lips as clarity filled my mind. I had seen the light and I read the words with a  new meaning. This was my prayer.

Abba,
You are sovereign.
In all things your will is done,
and I submit myself to your will.
You love me and will provide for me,
and even when I fail you forgive me,
which enables me to forgive others.
Protect, guide me, and lead me,
so that I may stay firm in your righteousness,
and not be swayed to the left or right from your path.
Every thing was made by you and for you and always will be.
Let it be.

Prayer is not merely confession, petition, or meditation, although these may all be components. Instead, the very essence of prayer is the alignment of our beings with the will of God. It is the admittance that although our situation may not conclude with an ending we deem as good, the Lord's purposes are greater than ours. Therefore, we surrender our ideas of good to a higher good regardless of where this may steer our destiny.
The Lord is sovereign and he will work his purposes with or without our submission. Therefore, let us submit, because we are but a drop while he is the ocean in the framework of time. He created the ocean, the framework, and the time by himself and for himself, and thus created the drop. May we surrender to the greatness that is beyond ourselves that we may find fullness in the Lord.