Kendall Smith, No-Div
Kendall is an elementary science teacher and an avid lover of books, nature, and long walks. She is easily distracted by thunderstorms and loves a good conversation over coffee.
When I was young, my parents would come into our room and pray with us each night. As most children do, we prayed prayers that were simple and repeatable. “Thank you for my family, thank you for this day.” That type of thing. Then we started realizing that there was danger around us, so we began articulating those fears. “Please don’t let there be spiders in my bed. Please help us not have a tornado tonight.” My little sister (the real genius) made this prayer much simpler by adding “…the 5 usual things” to the end of her prayers. “Thank you for this day, help us to have a good day tomorrow and to sleep well. And 5 usual things.” Of course, those 5 usual things were: no fires, no spiders, no carbon monoxide poisoning, no tornadoes and no burglars. Your basic childhood fears.
As we grow and mature, our prayers do, too. We start to pray for others we love, asking God to protect, provide, and guide. We may bring to God a list of our needs and wants, trusting that God loves us and hears us. We may ask God to be with us, thank God for all we have, and recognize God’s goodness towards us. There are seasons where we may worry our prayers, bringing the frustration and anxiety, fear and anger that we feel to God. In all of this, God hears us and loves us.
Have you ever stepped back and wondered what your prayers might say about who you see God to be? This wasn’t something I did intentionally, but rather came as I began to look back at prayers I had written out before. One thing that I noticed was that I was asking God to be with me a lot. It was like I assumed that God wasn’t already, or that I could do something to be far from God’s Abiding Presence. These words (be with me!) aren’t bad words to pray. But looking back, I realize that there was an angst behind them. An uncertainty. And more than a little fear.
Over the past few years, I have begun to realize that God is always with me! Rather than praying for God’s Spirit to go with me through my day, (which is a fine prayer to pray!) I have begun to pray that I would recognize God’s Spirit in me and around me as I go about my day. That is a really minor change in wording, and a really major change in my understanding of Who God Is!
Approaching God confident of the Spirit’s ever-abiding Presence with me brings a calm, a peace, a centering that I was missing before. It opens my eyes to see that God is at work all around me—I just need eyes to see it. It comforts me to realize that, rather than worry my prayers for direction and guidance, I can trust that “He who began a good work in me (and my children, and my neighbor, and my co-worker, and my friend who is hurting…) will bring it to [a beautiful] completion.”* Knowing that God is with me and is moving in my community and our world helps me understand that God answers prayers…and often in ways that I don’t expect.
I think we all go through seasons of struggle with prayer. If you feel that, you’re not alone, and you’re not doing it wrong. But there are ways we can grow. Have you ever prayed aloud? Written your prayers down? Prayed as you walk? Sat quietly in silence, conversing with God? These disciplines can help us to recognize God’s Presence with us more and more. And I’d invite you to listen in as you pray sometime. What do your prayers reveal about who you believe God to be?
*Philippians 1:6, adapted