13 Powerful Ways to Pray
By Eamon Tobin
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About this ebook
In this practical book by Fr. Eamon Tobin, you'll discover thirteen of the most common ways to communicate with God. You'll also gain a deeper understanding of why prayer is essential to your life, how it comforts and transforms you, and what to do when it seems dry or difficult.
Some of the prayer methods suggested in this book can be easily incorporated into your everyday life, while others require taking time away from your normal activities to intentionally meet God in solitude. But the goal is always the same: connecting with God and learning to know him more intimately. When it comes to prayer, there's something here for everyone.
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13 Powerful Ways to Pray - Eamon Tobin
God.
PART ONE
FOUR KEYS TO AN EFFECTIVE PRAYER LIFE
When it comes to our relationship with God, there are at least four essential keys to an effective relationship with our triune God. Even though each of us prays in a different way, all of us should attend to these four basics in prayer:
1) Developing a positive image of God and self;
2) Being honest with God;
3) Connecting prayer with daily life;
4) Listening to God in prayer.
If we ignore or are inattentive to any of these four essentials or keys, our relationship with God will be defective in some way.
Before examining each of these keys, it is important to understand the meaning of the words effective and keys when used in connection with prayer.
Effective Prayer: On the human level our attempts to communicate with each other can be effective or ineffective. They may be ineffective because deep down (perhaps unconsciously) either one or both of the parties may not want to communicate. Sometimes the problem is that, despite the presence of good will, very little intimacy is experienced because of a lack of basic communication skills. Some people have poorly developed listening skills; others are unable to confront in a mature way and reconcile differences in a reasonable way. On the other hand, when two people want very much to communicate with each other and have developed some basic communication skills, there is every chance that they will experience a good degree of understanding, trust, acceptance, and intimacy.
Now, just as there is effective and ineffective human communication, there is effective and ineffective divine-human communication. Some people, for example, pray (or rather say prayers
) all their lives and still do not make contact with God. Their prayer does not seem to affect their lives or the way they communicate with other people. They are often harsh and critical of self and others, have little or no social conscience, and are fearful and anxious about the future. Obviously the prayer or communication of such people is ineffective and leaves much to be desired both with God and with others.
In contrast to such faulty communication, effective prayer, of its very nature, facilitates human and spiritual growth and enhances our relationships with others and with God. It leads to growth in faith, hope, and love of God, others, and self. Effective or real prayer helps us to face evil courageously and place our trust in God when we walk in the valley of darkness (see Psalm 23). Effective prayer opens us to the experience of God’s unconditional love and the acceptance of his incomprehensible ways. It gradually helps us to be attentive and responsive to the needs of others, especially the poor. Finally, effective prayer should help us accept and integrate the different dimensions and strivings of our being.
If these growth patterns are not developing in our lives, then maybe we should reevaluate our way of praying. Of course, the benefits of effective prayer will not happen overnight. In fact, there will be periods of time when we wonder if anything positive is happening in our prayer life. But over the long haul, we can expect to grow closer to God and others if our prayer is honest and genuine.
Keys to Effective Prayer: The word keys does not imply that if we do certain things (press certain keys), we will automatically experience intimacy with God. Such belief would be seriously mistaken and blind us to the fact that, in the spiritual life, all is gift and union with God cannot be earned. The use of the word keys refers to some basic truths that we need to pay attention to so that we become receptive soil for God’s transforming work in us. The phrase receptive soil reminds us that prayer and its goal, our transformation in Christ (see Galatians 4:19), are pure gift. All we can do is pray for this gift and do what we can to create the conditions that will make us good soil for God’s transforming work. William Shannon, in Seeking the Face of God, writes: "It is true to say we don’t pray, but rather we let it happen in us. The best we can do is to prepare and dispose ourselves to let it happen.’’ The following four chapters will examine the four keys needed to help us prepare for an effective relationship with God.
KEY ONE:
Developing a Positive Image of God and Self
God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
1 JOHN 4:9 –10
If we really know ourselves to be loved by God, sooner or later our spontaneous response will be to love God in return… . The more rooted we are in love, the more generously shall we live our faith and put it into practice… . The knowledge that God loves us enables us to love ourselves without excuse and without questioning. We love ourselves as we are because our faith has convinced us that God does so.
PETER G. VAN BREEMEN, SJ
Few factors have the potential to affect the quality of our prayer life as much as our image of God and self. On a human level, the image and feelings we have for another person and how we perceive the other person to feel about us will usually have a tremendous effect on how we relate to that person. For example, we will approach and relate to a person whom we love and whom we perceive loves us in a different way than we will to a person for whom we have little or no feeling and whom we think does not particularly care for us. Our own self-image also will affect the way we approach and relate to people. If we have a positive image of ourselves, we will go out to people and relate to them with confidence, assuming they will like us. If we think we are not very lovable, we will approach people with self-doubt, fearful that they may reject us and not find us lovable. And if we believe that people will only accept us when we behave in certain ways, we will be inclined to be unreal with them, behaving only in ways we perceive to be acceptable to them.
How is all this connected to our relationship with God and our efforts at prayer? Well, God is a person, and prayer is our attempt to relate with a personal God. We have already shown how the same basic dynamics are at work in our relationship with God as are at work in our relationships with other people. What helps or hinders us in our attempts to relate to other people will also help or hinder us in our relationship with