I Am Prayer

I am prayer.

This is what David said.

(Psalm 109:4. It’s exactly what he said.)

What a mystery prayer is.

Prayer is the most mystical of all spiritual mysteries and the heart of Christian mysticism.

Prayer is the primary and essential essence of spirituality.

The spiritual pray. The materialists do not.

Prayer is deep calling unto deep.

Those with depth in their soul pray. The shallow-souls do not pray.

(Which is not to say they do not wish unto God for things — a phenomenon which they may mistake for prayer.)

Atheism is identified, not by philosophy, but by prayer.

The theist prays. The atheist does not.

To pray is to believe in miracles.

If prayer is what it is purported to be the event itself is miraculous.

Prayer effects the brain in unique ways.
(This is now empirically verifiable.)

Prayer is unique unto itself.

It’s not like righteousness or redemption or holiness or humility or faith or hope or love.

Prayer is not a state or a quality or an attribute.

Prayer is communication. Communication between a human being and God.

God is the one being with which we can communicate at any time.

All one has to do is direct their communication to God and it is prayer.

Though it may be poor or even wrong praying.

A person can’t really pray better than they are.

A selfish person will pray selfishly.
A proud person will pray pridefully.
A covetous person will pray greedily.
An angry person will pray angrily.

But in slow, lingering prayer that is at least an honest attempt to be unencumbered by personal agenda there is the hope of transformation.

I think David may have prayed almost better than anyone else. This is not because he was better than anyone else — he was not — but because he prayed about everything and seems to have always been unmistakably himself when he prayed.

To be yourself when you pray. This is no small accomplishment.

We know about David’s praying from his written poetic prayers — the Psalms. And the Psalms of David are quite amazing, not the least in their sheer honesty. It’s often hard to be completely honest in writing because writing assumes at least the possibility that someone else will see it. That’s why I’m suspicious of blogs. Even this one.

But David seems to have have been capable of having no sense of self-consciousness before God.

David prayed so much, so naturally, so as himself that he could say, I am prayer.

David could say:

* What I am is what I pray.

* My life is so open before God and so in communion with God that I am a constant prayer.

* To God I am not just a living thing or a doing thing, I am a praying thing.

This sort of thing captures the heart of God.

Thus David is “the man after God’s own heart.”

God seems to like a life that is lived before Him in utter honesty, even if it is fraught with deep failings, more than banal goodness.

Which is not to encourage you to sin like David.

Because, though anyone can sin like David did, I’m not sure many can repent like David did.

I think the best way to understand God’s obvious fondness for David was David’s openness and honesty before God.

David prayed honestly about everything.

Oh, to be able to say, I am prayer.

And it reminds of this prayer song by Keith Green.

Make My Life A Prayer

Make my life a prayer to You
I wanna do what You want me to
No empty words and no white lies
No token prayers no compromise

I wanna tell the world out there
You’re not some fable or fairy tale
That I’ve made up inside my head
You’re God the Son and You’ve risen from the dead

I AM PRAYER

BZ