Lord, Teach Us To Breathe

“Yet have regard to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which Your servant prays before You today.” I Kings 8:28

Lord, Teach Us To Breathe

Prayer – Christians believe in prayer, but they don’t seem to know much about it.  There is a general consensus that prayer is speaking to (maybe “with”) God, but just why and how this occurs is an awkward topic.  We usually choose to leave it to the professionals – the minister, the theologian, the Sunday school leader.  Most of us just feel inadequate.  Our prayers don’t flow with majestic language.  We run out of things to say.  We’re not sure how to end.  And if God knows everything before we even say it, then there’s a sense of pointlessness about prayer that sneaks in the backdoor. We hear about people who pray for hours and we just can’t understand how.  Five minutes is hard enough.  We know our prayer life is important, and inadequate, but we just don’t know what to do about it.

In general, the church doesn’t help much.  Prayers are either formal or flowery.  More like ritual than conversation.  And there’s so little time for prayer.  A minute of silence is actually frightening, especially for the minister.  Everyone says prayer is power, but no one teaches us how to pray.  It wasn’t always this way.  In the ancient Hebrew culture, life was impossible without prayer.

There are more than a dozen Hebrew words used to describe prayer.  The most common one is palal.  As a noun or a verb, it occurs almost 200 times.  This passage in 1 Kings, Solomon’s prayer for the people, uses the root word 30 times.  This is a good place to start looking at what prayer meant for those who knew God well.

The first thing we discover is that prayer is the identifying characteristic of Israel.  Prayer isn’t just something done during special moments of worship.  Prayer is more like breathing.  In fact, ancient Jewish tradition teaching that prayer is connected with the word nephesh (breath).  Inhaling connects me to God’s gift of life; His breath that brought me into being.  Exhaling connects me to my involvement with Him; His breath given back to the Creation.  Inhale – let God fill me.  Exhale – give back my devotion.

Prayer permeated the life of Israel just like breathing permeates my life.  For this reason, prayer is expressed in weeping, crying out, groaning, pleading, beseeching, worshipping and asking.  Prayer fills life because, for Israel, prayer is life.  Prayer is the human expression of the fact that life depends entirely on the graciousness of God.  So, the first thing I learn about prayer is how to breathe.

Breathe in:  God, I acknowledge You as my Creator.  I want You to fill me now.  I thank You for sustaining me.  I need You.

Breathe out:  God, I belong to You.  I offer who I am to serve You.  Use me as You wish in this moment.  I trust You.