4.2 What's the Best Way to Pray?

So, come back in time with me because I want to be honest. I didn't always have the best relationship with prayer. As a child, I remember that prayers were really important to my family. Our issue was a lack of connection. We had missed the point of prayer. We had reduced it in our minds as something to just keep Mum and Dad happy. We often forgot that we were talking to an actual person who was listening and deeply cared. When I've chatted to young people in schools, they've often spoken of this disconnection. The prayers that most people refer to are ones learned off by heart maybe a 'grace' said before or after meals, prayers at bedtime, or ones sent in certain church services. Please don't get me wrong, learned prayers are useful and they can be used as a springboard especially when you're unsure of how to pray for yourself. When you get to know the one these beautiful historic prayers are talking about, they'll take on a whole new meaning. And this is our invitation to you, we will always have set prayers to pray but it's up to you to find out how best you can connect with God. I've heard it once before that there are as many ways to pray as there are people's faces. He wants us to come to him, using our own language, with our own voice, in our own way. Now, our friends are going to share how they pray to give you all some ideas to think about. So for me, it's prayer walks. I love to get out walking as if God was right beside me talking to him just having him out with him and I've honestly experienced God so much when I'm just in the presence of his creation. Silence has always been key for me when I seek to connect with God. Things started to change for me when I started to view prayer as a conversation. True conversation requires listening, too. To listen meant I had to get away from distractions like music and TV. I have a special quiet spot, a cozy armchair by the window in my room. In that spot God speaks to me, he tugs at my heart, moves my conscience, and helps me realize things that I need to change or do. I love to write, in fact, sometimes I write so much I get a cramp in my hand. And I've had some amazing times in prayer with God when I've journaled. Over some of the saddest and happiest times in my life, I've kept a notebook full of thoughts. I would simply ask God to direct my pen and I'd start writing. There have been times in my life where I've written loads about a certain situation I was struggling with and later I would read back over those pages to discover so much more about myself, and about how God speaks in mysterious ways. Finding what works for you when it comes to prayer is so important, to spend that time and invest in what I believe to be the most important relationship in our lives, and this isn't necessarily a new idea. Jesus himself modelled all different types of prayer. It's recorded in the gospel of Mark that when it was still dark way before dawn, 'Jesus would get up, go to a secluded spot, and pray'. So, if Jesus needed his own special way of prayer and connecting with God then I believe we need to as well.