Two Simple Steps to Prayer

We tend to overcomplicate prayer. If we’re not careful, we think that we must reach a certain amount of passion to be heard by God, or that we must have all of our rhythms and spiritual disciplines set in place, or we think that God will only hear us if we use the right words or pray for long enough.

Or, more simply, we can actually think that God likes us more if we’re praying more passionately, praying longer or with more discipline, or using the right eloquent words.

Can I encourage us — even a simple turn in our hearts towards God is enough to move Him?

God is not waiting for us to pray longer, louder, or more eloquently to hear us. He hears us simply because He loves us!

In the words of the Bridegroom to the Bride in Song of Songs:

Just one glance is enough to ravish God’s heart with love! One simple thought about Him makes Him smile. What a profound truth! What a mystery!

If we’re not careful, we can mistake passion, discipline, or eloquence for the simplicity of being with the One who loves us more than we can ever fathom.

Similarly, St Teresa of Avila encourages her young nuns:

To paraphrase, she is teaching us that prayer is not about eloquence or having the right words — it’s simply about looking at Jesus.

In the beginning of the Gospel of John, the disciples also discover the pure simplicity of looking at Jesus.

If I could sum up a prayer life (and, really, a life of following Jesus) in two steps, it would be: 1. See Him. 2. Stay with Him.

Or: 1. Fall in Love. 2. Stay in love.

When John the Baptism sees Jesus walking by, he exclaims to his disciples:

His first invitation to his disciples is simply to look at Jesus.

He doesn’t invite them to subscribe to a certain set of doctrines or to approach Him with a particular set of rituals or words.

He invites them to simply see.

I’d love to make this practical for us — how often do we picture Jesus when we pray?

There are so many beautiful pictures of Jesus in the Bible — the Galilean rabbi, the crucified Lamb, the Resurrected Man with holes in His hands, the Lord with eyes of fire and hair white as snow in Revelation.

When we don’t envision the Lord’s face when we pray, we can begin to lose sight of the inherent relationality of prayer.

Instead of a continual conversation with our lovesick Lord, prayer can become about how much time we’re spending, if we’re saying all the right words, or a whole host of things other than simply being with Him.

What would look like to simply behold the Lamb of God again today?

In the Gospel of John, once the disciples see Jesus, he invites them to come and stay with him:

Astute readers of John will notice that John uses one of his favorite words in this verse: remain. Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus will encourage his disciples to “Remain in me, as I also remain in you” (15:4, NIV). For John, the principle of “remaining” is about more than just the disciples going to Jesus’s house — it’s about abiding, staying, resting, and not leaving the place of communion with Jesus.

So, put simply, they See Him and they Stay with Him.

Practically, this can look like the simple practice of continually turning our hearts towards the Lord throughout our days. Brother Lawrence, in his book Practicing the Presence of God, encourages us to think of God often — in the doing of dishes, in the seeing of trees, and in the normal tasks of life. He writes that the “least little remembrance will always be the most pleasing to him.” In other words, God is moved when we simply remember Him. To go back to the verse we started with, one glance of our eyes can ravish his heart!

As we said at the beginning, there is always a subtle invitation to make prayer more complicated than this. I’d love to invite us back to the simplicity of seeing and staying, of falling in love and staying in love.

See Him and stay with Him!

I’d love to invite us to pray today:

• Begin by taking some deep breaths in and out. Perhaps as you breathe in pray “Come,” and as you breathe out pray “Holy Spirit.”

• Once you feel settled, pick one of the pictures of Jesus I listed above.

  • the Galilean rabbi

  • the crucified Lamb

  • the Resurrected Man

  • the One with eyes of fire and hair white as snow

• Then, simply stay there! Talk to Him. See how many times today you can remind the eyes of your heart to see Him.

I love hearing from those of you who are coming alive and living more in love with Jesus. Always feel free to hit “reply” and let me know if there is any way that I can support you in prayer.