Justin Appel

‘My soul has longed for your salvation;
I have put my hope in your word.

My eyes have failed from watching for your promise,
and I say, ‘When will you comfort me?’’
- Psalm 119:81-82

Dear Friends,

This week, I have been thinking quite a bit about prayer. Mind you, I’m not an expert at it. In fact, I’ve only scratched the surface of this unwieldy practice. (Let’s not call it a ‘topic’ — if there’s anything clear about prayer, it is that it is done, not contemplated.)

The psalm quoted above (read the whole section here) seems to say several important things about prayer. I say this because I believe the passage indicates a general way of being, not simply a unique circumstance — the psalmist being in some kind of trouble, for instance. What are these qualities of prayer?

First, prayer is a lifelong orientation to God. The psalmist continues to long for salvation; the promise is always an object of hope.

What does that orientation look like for us? We too must practice regular prayer over many years — most likely by reading prayers from a book. The goal of these repeated, imitated prayers is always to lead us to true prayer, which is real communion between myself and God. This communion can take many forms, but flows in a sequence: written prayers composed by the saints (who teach me through their example the act and discipline of prayer), my own extemporaneous prayers (which must be shaped by long practice of the former), and finally, a heightened sense of being in God’s presence continually. Only the holiest of the saints have achieved this final stage of this flow.

Prayer is a process that consumes our whole life.

The second reality here is that prayer is struggle. The psalmist watched for God until his eyes failed. If we engage in the practice of prayer, we too will find that this initial stage — the learning of the forms — will be difficult. We will struggle to speak with God. The emotions may fail to engage. In fact, I may feel un-devout and un-committed, like a fraud while I stumble through my prayers. That’s perfectly normal.

The third reality here is that prayer involves suffering. We don’t pray to simply feel better about ourselves. In fact, a struggle to speak to God will eventually bring us into contact with our real selves, and this will be deeply painful. Prayer brings God into my consciousness, and his presence will begin to excoriate the scarred, calcified surface of my hard heart. As it softens, I will begin to see the world differently. I will see the pain and suffering of the world as my own. I will begins to see that my sins affect others, and even that I can and should see others’ sins as my own. All of this will hurt. In fact, if our prayers are only lovely, self-affirming, and light, there is a very real risk that we might not actually be praying; or worse, we may be praying to something or someone other than God.

Yes, prayer is hard, uncomfortable, a real struggle. I don’t have consoling news here! There is no easy answer to the existential dilemma.

And yet, we should not lose hope: for prayer is largely about what God does to us. What seems impossible to us is possible for him. God can take our prayers, however pathetic they may be in the beginning, and turn them into a powerful vehicle for our transformation.

Forgive me: these are difficult things to write, and space is short!

Yours in Christ,
Justin