Being There...

Let no thought come to my heart,

Let no ruffle come to my spirit,

  that is hurtful to my poor body this night,

  nor ill for my soul at the hour of my death-

but may You Yourself, O God of life,

be at my breast, be at my back,

You to me as a star, You to me a guide,

from my life's beginning to my life's closing.

• A Celtic prayer (partial)

More Things Are Wrought By Prayer

There are those scoffers and diminishers of prayer. A scoffer would say it doesn't work, and a diminisher tells you, "all I can do is pray" (betraying a very wrong view of prayer!).  Good true prayer "works"-- the scoffers have no studies to tell them that it does - or does not (which is what they claim they want); diminishers don't seem to realize that prayer is 1) the best and first thing to do for the person 2) gives light/guidance for action.
Lacking prayer, what are we doing but "nourishing a blind life within the brain..."?

"More Things Are Wrought By Prayer"

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,
Both for themselves and those who call them friend.
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
—by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Attitude Sickness

It’s been said that ideas have consequences—I would add that attitudes do, too. One of my great uncles was a Communist as a young man. I suppose, the theory sounded paper-good. Family lore has it that when he was sent overseas, he changed his mind about the Communism’s positive contribution–and changed his attitude towards it.
  Little is more unsettling than a disengaged, disinterested atheist: the ones with a “Whatever…” attitude. It’s unsettling because it’s a dead attitude: there’s no freshness, no curiosity, no vibrancy.  A few days ago, my husband was leaving the office and met someone for the first time.  This employee was departing at the same time to go on a jog. It turned out that he was the final person to talk to the employee alive– she was struck and killed in the evening traffic.  I do not know the spiritual state of the employee.  I only know the death was unexpected and sudden—but that is our continual status as humans.
   A person’s beliefs about the world is a conglomeration of who he is and who he has become-never an accurate reflection of the world. If his belief about God is that He is not there and does not care, I have to wonder who taught him this. God will never will trifle with your affections—that is, He takes your feelings seriously—probably more seriously than you do. And He, of all, is faithful to you.
   Some atheists have told me, “I can’t pray so I don’t.” and “I don’t know what to believe about God.” If you want love, then you must pray. All you need is to be willing to try—God coaches you through it all. And you can’t pray wrongly— not when you pray with your entire heart.
“That prayer has great power which a person makes with all his might…
It draws down the great God into the little heart;
it drives the hungry soul up into the fullness of God;
it brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place
where they speak much of love.” (Mechthild of Magheburg)
  As for “what to believe about God” problem, I suggest you ask yourself what Christ says about Him and what is important to Him—and look in the Bible for that information. God will provide the rest—but don’t expect a PhD in God-o-logy, for spiritual growth can (and should) go on your entire life—however long that is. The only hard question is: are you willing?

An Alchemy Beyond A Recipe

Images, fragrances, flavors–they all have the power to attract or to repulse. The picture here is an original piece of stitched artwork done by a Catskill artist who was doing a theme on doors–I often imagine prayer as a kind of doorway. PR men used to wrangle with the difficulties of television because it could not be Smell-O-Vision: that is, they couldn’t bring the fragrances of meals into our homes.
An old friend of mine was a successful professional photographer in New York City. She told me a trade secret. She could not photograph real food and make it look tasty. To capture the savoriness of the real food, she had to employ props (fake food). I was surprised that anything as appetizing as a gourmet meal or garden-fresh produce had to be faked.  But the failure was not in the food, but transmission of its essence by camera.  After I learned this fact, one day I was sitting in the mental misty flats of wondering what was wrong with me for getting bored when people would talk about prayer.  I realized that I was trying to draw a straight line between praying and garbled discussions of prayer. In doing so, my mistake to link my boredom of the discussion of prayer to me praying and the natural result: guilt. I reclaimed my life by realizing prayer wasn’t boring–but discussing it was.
Since then, I carry no guilt about being bored in conversations or sermons on prayer: I have drawn a clear line between description and experience. (Instruction on prayer is necessary, but that’s a different topic, altogether.)  That the stellar effects of praying are not easily transmitted doesn’t spoil my joy of prayer. The effects, the fragrance-memories, can linger in the heart for decades as a kind of retro fixed point. I’d like to believe that God gives us personal memories of prayer to sustain and re-attract us.  I am sure one of God’s chief desires for me is to learn that He loves me in excess of my love for anyone or anything else. Paul says as much in his prayer for the Ephesians:
“to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.” (Ephesians 3). Notice Paul doesn’t write about prayer, nor merely say, “You should love God.” He prays for them to comprehend God’s love, at least as much as (I am sure) he himself had experienced God's love.
Images can give us a more concrete understanding of what I am trying to say about prayer.  For this, I like how George Herbert’s poem captures a kind of slideshow in words about the effects of prayer. (Charity Johnson)
Prayer (1)
Prayer the Church’s banquet, angel’s age,
  God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
  The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tower,
  Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
  The six days world-transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
  Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,
  Heaven in ordinary, man well-drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
  Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
  The land of spices; something understood.
by George Herbert

Bearing Grudges Will Break Your Back-What To Do When You're Hurt

It is human to wish ill on certain people and our sense of justice doesn't need prodding to produce a desire for vengence, these illustrate:

September 1, 1939
I and the public know
What all school children learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return. [lines 19-22] - by W.H. Auden

"Docimedes has lost two gloves. He asks that the person who has stolen them should lose his mind and eyes in the temple where she appoints." - A Roman curse, Bath, England.

"The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish."  W.H. Auden, "The Prince's Dog" (p. 201)

It's normal, it's human, but, is vengeance the right way, the godly way, to respond to wrongdoing? "How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?" asks Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice"

Jesus Christ, when instructing His followers how to pray, told them to include,
"Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us." (Matthew 6:12, New Living Translation). Another time Christ was instructing his followers::
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:43-48 (English Standard Version)
Certainly, genuine Christian tradition through the centuries has taught and modeled Christ as in this message and life:
"Through...prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them they will not despitefully use and persecute us. They certainly will. But not even that can ...overcome us, so long as we pray for them...We are doing vicariously for them what they cannot do for themselves."- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism, a founding member of the Confessing Church. Imprisoned, and then executed on April 9, 1945 in Nazi Germany.

Maybe you're not Christian, and maybe you don't care. But maybe it's the only thing to do?
It is a wonderful paradox of God: when injured person comes to God praying for his enemy, suddenly finds himself in the throne room together with God and in a sense he has become the person of greater power.  The wrong-doer no longer has real power over the person he has wronged. Retaliation, taking vengeance, has no up side to it.  It perpetuates the harm to all people involved, and are always unintended and unforeseen consequences to taking vengeance.   I know what you're thinking: it's too much to ask.  I agree. Christ's charge to his followers to pray and to forgive more often than not does require supernatural power--but then, God is in the business of supplying supernatural power, especially in these cases. It will require of you the strength to be humble.  If you think about it, as the victim of wrongdoing, wouldn't you rather have God figure out the justice and future justice of entire mess than to live out the rest of your days in perpetual conflict, unrest and anger?   Praying for your enemies is a powerful, character-changing act.
Do you dare? - Charity Johnson

New Years Eve-what if this were my last night on earth?

Lord, if this night my journey end,
I thank Thee first for many a friend,
The sturdy and unquestioned piers
That run beneath my bridge of years.

And next, for all the love I gave
To things and men this side the grave,
Wisely or not, since I can prove
There always is much good in love.

Next, for the power thou gavest me
To view the whole world mirthfully,
For laughter, paraclete of pain,
Like April suns across the rain.

Also that, being not too wise
To do things foolish in men's eyes,
I gained experience by this,
And saw life somewhat as it is.

Next, for the joy of labour done
And burdens shouldered in the sun;
Nor less, for shame of labour lost,
And meekness born of a barren boast.

For every fair and useless thing
That bids men pause from labouring
To look and find the larkspur blue
And marigolds of a different hue;

For eyes to see and ears to hear,
For tongue to speak and thews to bear,
For hands to handle, feet to go,
For life, I give Thee thanks also.

For all things merry, quaint and strange,
For sound and silence, strength, and change,
And last, for death, which only gives
Value to every thing that lives;

For these, good Lord that madest me,
I praise Thy name; since, verily,
I of my joy have had no dearth
Though this night were my last on earth.

- By Dorothy Sayers

Difficult Times and Hard Questions

"Where is God?" question can be asked anywhere, and any time, but it is most often asked in the midst of difficulties since when you are content that you have no pressing sense of a need for God, His presence, or He extracting you from the situation(s). In face, being complacent or placid may make the  claims of God on your soul as distraction-an interruption in your life. And, indeed, we often congratulation ourselves when we remind ourselves to be grateful and perhaps then dip into a self-congratulatory moment of warm, fuzzy feelings toward our Maker. 
But what about desperate situations,those crushingly dificult times, prolonged periods of overwhelming grief?  When all help comes up empty-handed, and desperation mounts? Don't you so often feel on the other side of Heaven's door--and it's all silent within?  Waiting seems to make no difference, but the longer the wait, the louder the silence seems.
You wonder, “Did Anyone really care—really?"  Maybe it had seemed so at one time (for some)-but then, how do you interpret that? That you believe God is leading you in good time, but doesn’t even a whisper to us in our trouble?
If you’re in deep grief, though, the danger will not be so much as to cease believing in God—but in believing some strange and twisted things about God. 
The term "I couldn't think straight" is an extremely accurate description of understanding how rattled and irrational our attempt to pray--and understand God's response--will be when we are at our lowest, when we are emotionally crushed. Truthfully, we cannot, in those times of great emotional stress, sort out our panic and desperation from our clearest thoughts. In my experience God does answer, but He allow for times of apparent deadness, for us to travel through the emotions of grief, etc.  In this "pocket" of time, however long it turns into, we can fill with our voice--God is listening, and our prayers become a cleansing, a way of emptying ourselves of the violence we feel the world has perpetrated on our souls.   It'sas if we need to bleach of the stains out of the garment before the we are dipped, immersed and dyed with the great hues of God's speech which will refill the newly cleansed backdrop of our souls.
Prayer, the primary language of the soul, is like saying our phonemic alphabet: though not deeply profound, it is most necessary for it is the foundation of all communication with God.
And this most necessary communication, prayer, is that which brings us into the mysteries still unexplored. - Charity Johnson
“Prayer, in the sense of asking for things, is a small part of it;
confession and penitence are its threshold,
adoration its sanctuary,
the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine.
In it God shows Himself to us.
That he answers prayer is a corollary—not necessarily the most important one—from the revelation.
What He does is learned from what He is.”

• CS Lewis

The 4-Letter Word Most People Hate—or Hate to Hear

P-R-A-Y.
What is it about prayer? If I talk about it, the conversation either begins and ends talking ABOUT it (as, you see, talking about prayer is ok, just, please, don’t do it) or it ends (people don’t want to talk about it, it’s too personal or some such). But it’s there—from youth to old age, prayer keeps returning.
So, why do we pray?--- I am not speaking of the “transactional” prayers in which types of prayers and sacrifices function as part of the economy of “bargaining” for a divine favor or good fortune from some spirit-god, as shamans, witchdoctors and other “spirit-guides” do.
I am speaking of the appeal that we--finite, mortal and flawed people--make to all-powerful and all-knowing, creator and sustainer God. What is our unspoken or assumed expectation of prayer? I sense it is often not simply petitioning the Almighty, but also, a desire to experience His immanence in our (little) lives. Yes, we may pray because we seek help, but we wish for transcendence.
What is the thing least understood thing about prayer, particularly petition (request) prayers? People are surprised and/or disappointed that they don’t get what they pray for just because they prayed for it – at least not every time. Which is rather curious, if God is who He is and we are who we are, then we should be okay with it.
There is a group of people who refuse to pray because “if God is really a beneficent and all-knowing, then I need not pray. Without even asking, He’s rushing to bestow on me what I wish, which makes prayer unnecessary.” I am not sure if this is challenging God, or pride, or laziness, or mere disbelief—or a combination, but it sounds like the person thinking this way is the Boss of the World. I would think that if my teenager needs and wants breakfast before school, then he should move to the kitchen where the breakfast food is—he’ll not get it lying in bed. (-Charity Johnson)
George MacDonald addresses it further:
“But if God is so good as you represent Him [to be], and if He knows all that we need, and far better than we do ourselves, why [is] it necessary to ask Him for anything?”
I answer,
“What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer [is] the supplying of our great, our endless need—the need of Himself?
Hunger may drive the runaway child [back] home, and he may or may not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner.
Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need:prayer is the beginning of that communion, [there is] some need that is the motive of that prayer.
So begins a communion, a taking up with God, a coming-to-one with Him. [This] is the sole end of prayer, [even] of existence itself in its infinite phases.
We must ask that we may receive:[however] it is not God’s end in having us pray to receive with respect to our lower needs [since] He could give us everything without that.
[God would] bring us to His knee… [He] withholds [so] that we may ask."

---
from George MacDonald, 365 Readings, edited by CS Lewis (language updated)
Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York

Wealth in the New Year

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul.

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

From: Morte D'Arthur (partial, spacing provided)
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

"More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of."

A Mystic's Poem on Prayer

That prayer has great power which a person makes with all his might.
It makes a sour heart sweet, a sad heart merry, a poor heart rich,
a foolish heart wise, a timid heart brave, a sick heart well,
a blind heart full of sight, a cold heart ardent.
It draws down the great God into the little heart;
it drives the hungry soul up into the fullness of God;
it brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place
where they speak much of love.

• Mechthild of Magheburg  (a Catholic mystic from the 1200’s)

Valuable--! but not traded

"God, who is Love, has freely bestowed on all men those things which are necessary for both the spiritual and temporal life, but since He offers salvation and His Holy Spirit to all as freely, they are lightly esteemed. [Yet] prayer teaches us to value them, because they are as necessary as air and water, heat and light, without which life is impossible. The things for our spiritual life God has freely provided…but men so lightly regard them that they offer no thanks to their Creator.


…On the other hand, His gifts of gold, silver, and precious jewels, which are scarce and obtained with great difficulty, they highly esteem, [yet] though with such things the hunger and thirst of the body cannot be assuaged, nor the longings of the heart be satisfied.


With such folly do men of the world act with regard to spiritual things, but to the man of prayer are given true wisdom and eternal life."

• Sadhu Sundar Singh from At the Master’s Feet

Yes, I Am Sure It Is A Sign (Three Signs, Actually)

I own three old wall-signs. None of them is particularly beautiful (they are ugly) but each of them has a message that speaks to me as a kind of “spiritual flashcard.”
I got the first one from my mother-in-law. I asked if I could have the sign that had hung in their dining room for decades and chripped out its blunt but truthful reminder to me at every Sunday dinner. It is just a small piece of pine board with a decoupage flower, about 45 years old. Why did I ask for it? It reminds me of God's continual goodness to me and my inattention to this truth. It says (not very delicately):

“Home is where you’re treated the best and grumble the most.”

The second sign I begged off my grandmother, and it is even humbler--it is probably close to 65 years old. This is also a small piece of wood, but is blackened by grease, cigarette smoke and age. On it is a painting of a man in a fancy top hat and a woman in a fur stole and pearl necklace. Behind them is the old skyline of New York City. Its message to me is a reminder of the difference between money and wealth. It reads:

“We don’t want to be rich. Just live like them.”

We think that rich people are happy but it's not true. What you see is the fleeting smile of self-satisfaction (and comfortable new shoes). People who can give away are the happy ones; to be wealthy is to be able to give. It is possible to be rich, or middle-class, or poor and also to be poor-at-heart and greedy, and tightfisted (which translates into their relationships). Only the wealthy can afford give, and give. I know I am wealthy because I can give—if only of my time and attention. Life can be one continual Grand Give-Away because I have a Benefactor who is a Provider. Not only that, this Provider cares for me and always has my best interests at heart. Oh, of course, He is also only the Keeper and Owner of the Universe. My well-being is bound up in His wealth. It’s as simple as that.

The third sign I bought 34 years ago as a newlywed. It is the only thing that I own that has lasted though 22 house moves, including three moves overseas and back again. It is a white piece of fiberboard and has a bible verse on it. This scripture is for me key to spiritual soundness in a distracting, dizzying and always confusing world:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.”
- Jesus Christ

Matthew 22:37-40

God does not call to me as someone in a collective. No, He calls me by name. And this little sign, I take as His word to me today--not as a piece of information to pass along, or to pass by as if for someone else.
 Indeed, if this little sign is all I pay attention to in one day, then I have accomplished much. And all for His Glory.

God Would Bring Us To His Knee

What is it about prayer? It is a Life Question that we can’t shake. From the time a child first learns about it (whether formally taught or not) until to his final years, prayer is a recycled Life Theme. Granted, some seek to be rid of it but typically it rears its head again, usually unbidden.
Why do we pray?- I am not speaking of the “transactional” prayers in which types of prayers and sacrifices function as part of the economy of “bargaining” for a divine favor or good fortune from some spirit-god, as shamans, witchdoctors and other “spirit-guides” do.
I am speaking of the appeal that we, finite, mortal and flawed people make to all-powerful and all-knowing, creator and sustainer God.
Back to the question: what is our unspoken or assumed expectation of prayer? I believe it is not only our petition we seek but also by means of the prayer interaction, we wish to experience His immanence in our (little) lives. Yes, we may pray because we seek help, but we also wish for contact with the transcendent—
I have found that the thing most people least understand about prayer is the part about RESULTS. Prayer is efficacious (having the desired result), but beware, in every other pursuit we have a way to measure the desired result. The problem with the efficaciousness of prayer is that God has the measuring stick. If we're using ours (my will, my desired outcome), then the results will appear to be flawed. That should be more than okay with us if God is who He is and we are who we are.
I have had many former church-goers and “universalists” tell me they do not pray because they do not need to. They have a reason: "God is both beneficent and all-knowing, I do not need to pray-without me breathing a prayer, God has read my thoughts and desires and answered them." Theologically this is belief has no legs. But, at its root it’s a problem of pride and laziness (I suspect some people cringe at the humility of prayer). A simple analogy will do to illustrate: both my teenager (and I) know that he needs and wants breakfast before school. Shouldn’t he come to the kitchen for it? If the parent has provided but the child is too lazy to make a move, he’s cutting himself off from the source and will be famihed by lunchtime.
George MacDonald addresses it further in: "Why Should It Be Necessary?”
“But if God is so good as you represent Him [to be], and if He knows all that we need, and far better than we do ourselves, why [is] it necessary to ask Him for anything?”
I answer,
“What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer [is] the supplying of our great, our endless need—the need of Himself?
Hunger may drive the runaway child [back] home, and he may or may not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner.
Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need:
prayer is the beginning of that communion, [there is] some need that is the motive of that prayer.
So begins a communion, a taking up with God, a coming-to-one with Him. [This] is the sole end of prayer, [even] of existence itself in its infinite phases.
We must ask that we may receive:[however] it is not God’s end in having us pray to receive with respect to our lower needs [since] He could give us everything without that. [God would] bring us to His knee… [He] withholds [so] that we may ask."

• from George MacDonald, 365 Readings, edited by CS Lewis (language updated) Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York.

The Landscape of Prayer

To say God is eternally creative sounds-almost trite-of course He is. To understand this as a reality is overwhelming in its potential for transforming your life.
Let’s assume you pray, and let’s also assume that you believe that God hears the prayers of His children. If this is the case, then you likely believe that His answers will come. The question that one normally harbors is when? Will you be like Joseph and go years without an answer, or will you get an immediate answer?
But, there is another, larger question which we ought to examine in ourselves as we pray for His answers. Are we counting on His answers to our prayers to be a perfect reflection of our own requests?
If we are, then we might not recognize His answer. Why? because rather than appearing as an answer to prayer, He will answer us as His own children but from His own understanding which, of course, is omniscient. And because it is omniscient, it's formidable!
One thing we ought never forget in our prayers is how we can never fully know is how little we know about own limited understanding of His Creative Self!  We  know intellectually that His creative 'mind' never flags or falters; nor does it replicate what He has done in the past. Do we know that as a heart-reality? 
And, yes, His creative answers can invade my little world of prayer.
The question is do I dare to believe that? do I dare to pray this way?
Do you?

How Do You Feel About Your Prayer?

How I Ascertain the Will of God
by George Mueller

1. I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter.
Nine-tenths of the trouble with people is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord’s will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.
2. Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impression. If I do so, I make myself liable to great delusions.
3. I seek the will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Spirit guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.
4. Next I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s will in connection with His Word and Spirit.
5. I ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me aright.
6. [It is in this way:] through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a ...judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge, and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petition[ary prayers], I proceed according [as I have been led].
In trivial matters, and in transactions involving most import issues, I have found this method always effective.

Ask, Seek, and Knock...and you'll be answered

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed
If Thou the Spirit give by which I pray:
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That of its nature self can nothing feed;
Of good and pious works Thou art the seed,
That quickens only when Thou say’st it may;
Unless Thou show to us Thine own true way
No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.

• Michelangelo

An Omniscient God and Making Ourselves Known To Him

People often object to praying-usually, it seems, because they think an omniscient God ought to “know” and somehow either it’s lazy of Him to want a “field report” or perhaps they are in denial of His power and see His handling of situations as “proof” of His interest in them. There is a ring of illogic here. Ife we take for a fact that God is omniscient, and yet still asks us to pray, then perhaps He’s got, not an information gap, but some other situation. Perhaps, instead, there exists a faith-gap on our side. That is, for us to pray is an exhibition of not only inner faith, but an exercise in faith. We all know that it’s not only planning your new exercise regime, but actually carrying it out that does any good. Exercise is not abstract thought, nor is faith.

CS Lewis addresses this here:

"[People who attack Christian prayer-if they know the Bible-could begin in Philippians] about ‘making your request known to God.’ I mean, the words making known bring out most clearly the apparent absurdity [which Christians are charged with.] We say we believe God to be omniscient; yet a great deal of prayer seems to consist of giving Him information. …we have been reminded by Our Lord [Jesus]…not to pray as if we forgot the omniscience-‘for your heavenly Father knows you need all these things.’ …

…. To confess our sins before God is certainly to tell Him what He knows much better than we. [Besides,] any petition is a kind of telling. [And] ..it at least seems to solicit His attention. Some traditional formulae make that implication clear: “Hear us, good Lord.” “O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint.” As if, though God does not need to be informed, He does need..to be reminded.

But we cannot really believe that degrees of attention and therefore inattention, and therefore of something like forgetfulness, exist in the Absolute Mind.       

I presume that only God’s attention keeps me (or anything else) in existence at all. [So], what then are we really doing? Our whole conception of..the prayer-situation depends on the answer.

We are always completely, and therefore equally, known to God. That is our destiny whether we like it or not.

But though this knowledge never varies, the quality of our being known can. [Borrowing from the school of thought that says ‘freedom is willed necessity’ to use this idea only] as an analogy. Ordinarily, to be known by God is to be, for this purpose, in the category of things. We are like earthworms, cabbages and nebulae, objects of divine knowledge. But when we (a) become aware of the fact… and (b) assent with all our will to be so known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things, but as persons.

We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled this sight. The change is in us. The passive changes to the active. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view.

…[Indeed] it is by the Holy Spirit that we cry “Father.” By unveiling, by confessing our sins and ‘making knon’ our requests we assume the high rank of persons [rather than things] before Him. And He, descending…a Person to us."

• CS Lewis, Letters to Malcolm 

Afraid Of Praying-and For Good Reason

Prayer is a funny thing. It's funny, hard and strange, all these things, and in some ways it’s a mystery.   Biblical prayer, at least, not the kind of prayer rituals people have or prayer baskets or prayer wheels, or any kind of formulated prayer made to appease and / or petition a god.
Biblical prayer is always hard, I think. It stands to reason if you think about it: the person praying is something other than what other people perceive him to be because he’s being as transparent as he possibly can be. Secondly, he really is something other than what he normally is because for once, he’s in a position where he is recognizing he is the created one (and all that means: limited, weak, flawed, fallen) who is speaking to the Creator Godhead, and all that He is exceeds mere definition and is outside our understanding.
Prayer is hard partly because it is demanding. It's not physically or intellectually demanding. But prayer puts a strain on the human psyche that we tend to avoid. You see, prayer demands humilty. And, no, it might not start off that way, but if one prays long enough, and one ends up there. When you are humble you put yourself aside for the time being. And with that putting aside comes a strange sense that there is “another” self speaking to God-that it is the real self.
Lewis addresses this:
     'The moment of prayer is for me-or involves for me as its condition-the awareness, the re-awakened awareness that this “real world” and “real self” are very far from being rockbottom realities. I cannot in the flesh, leave the stage, either to go behind the scenes [in a metaphoric play] or…but I can remember that these are regions that exist.
    And I also remember that my apparent self-this clown or hero…under his greasepaint is a real person with an offstage life. The dramatic person could not tread the stage unless he concealed a real person: unless the real and unknown I existed, I would not even make mistakes about the imagined me.
   And in prayer this real I struggles to speak, for once, from his real being, and to address, for once, not the other actors, but—what shall I call Him? The Author, for He invented us all? The Producer, for He controls all? Or the Audience, for He watches, and will judge, the performance?
   The attempt is not to escape from space and time and from my creaturely situation as a subject facing objects. It is more modest: to re-awaken the awareness of that situation. If that can be done, there is no need to go anywhere else. This situation itself is, at every moment, a possible theophany. Here is the holy ground, the Bush is burning now.
   Of course this attempt may be attended with almost every degree of success or failure. The prayer preceding all prayers is “May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.”
   Infinitely various are the levels from which we pray. Emotional intensity is in itself no proof of spiritual depth. If we pray in terror we shall pray earnestly; it only proves that terror is an earnest emotion.
   Only God Himself can let the bucket down to the depths in us. And, on the other side, He must constantly work as the iconoclast. Every idea of Him we form, He must in mercy shatter.
   The most blessed result of prayer would be to rise thinking, “But I never knew before. I never dreamed…”   I suppose it was at such a moment that Thomas Aquinas said of all his own theology,  “It reminds me of straw.”'  (CS Lewis in  Letters to Malcolm)

Our Actions, Time and Prayer

I believe in prayer.
I believe prayer moves people and situations more intricately than we know.  I can give example after example of answered prayer. But I usually don't bother to do that, at least not in the context of talking about the efficacy of prayer. Why? Because if you've not experienced its efficacy, my talking about it will not convince you or any sceptic. My telling you that it makes a difference doesn't make it true for you for your mind has been made up about prayer. It is our our best gift from God, but life will go on without it and so it doesn't make much difference to many people.

Let's ask why this is the case.  It seems to me that people don't pray much or well because they believe prayer should be a lever-push the lever and a pellet will come out, where praying is analogous to pushing the lever.  Prayer is more complex than that, at least in terms of its operations. It's also simpler and more difficult than most people imagine. It's simpler because it has to do with simple trust. It's more difficult because most people would prefer to orchestrate their lives, including their prayer lives and/or are unwilling to do the actual work and responsiblity that comes as a result of answered prayer.
Children pray most efficaciously because they are most trusting and dependent faith in our Lord’s willingness to answer our prayers, and least interested in the “mechanics” of how He would work out answering prayers. This explanation does not dismiss the questions that sceptics or adult believers have about prayer’s efficacy, free will and God’s timing which really ought to be considered. CS Lewis weighs in:

“When we are praying about the result of… (something, say) a medical consultation the thought will often cross our minds the event is already decided one way or another. I believe this to be no good reason for ceasing (to) pray. The event certainly has been decided – in a sense it was decided ‘before all ages.’ But one of the things taken into account in deciding it, and therefore one of the things that really cause it to happen, may be this very prayer that we offer. Thus, shocking as it may sound, I conclude we can at noon become part causes of an event occurring at ten o’clock. The imagination will, no doubt, play all sorts of tricks on us at this point. It will ask, ‘Then if I stop praying can God go back and alter what has already happened?’ No. The event has already happened and one of its causes has been the fact that you are asking such questions instead of praying. It will ask, ‘Then if I being to pray can God go back and alter was has already happened?’ No. The event has already happened and one of its causes is your present prayer. Thus something does really depend on my choice. My free act contributes to cosmic shape. That contribution is made in eternity ‘before all worlds’ [ages]; but my consciousness of contributing reaches me at a particular point in the time series.”

• CS Lewis, Miracles

Our Infinite God Has Infinite Time for You and for Me

“God is not hurried along in the time stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his novel. He has infinite attention to spare for one each of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died for you, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.

The way in which (the) illustration breaks down is this. In it the author gets out of one time series (that of the novel) only by going into another time series (the real one). But God…does not live in a time series at all. His “life” is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is…still 2009 and already 2049. For His life is Himself.

If you picture time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above, or outside, or all around, contains the whole line, and sees it all.”

• CS Lewis, Mere Christianity {dates adjusted}