Prayer: A Conversation With God

Prayer at its core is conversation with God. There are different ways to pray and varieties of issues to pray about, but fundamentally prayer is having a conversation with God. Prayer is God’s idea. He is the one who initiates prayer. As one studies the prayers, conversations with God, in Scripture, we discover that in most cases, God began the conversation and He began it with a question. It seems that today, this is still a common discovery.

The first prayer in the Bible, found in Genesis 3 is a conversation between God and Adam and Eve. There are words from God to man before this account, but this is the first conversational dialogue between God and man recorded in the Scriptures. Conversational dialogue is an essential part of prayer. Notice in this first recorded prayer, God started the conversation and started it with a question.

⁸ When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.⁹ Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”

¹¹ “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”

¹² The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”

¹³ Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”

“The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.” – Genesis 3:8-13

The apostle Paul wrote: “Pray without ceasing.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Other translations phrase it as: “pray constantly, pray continually, pray regularly, never stop praying.” When prayer is viewed as conversation with God, this makes much more sense. Notice that the prayer Adam and Eve had with God, was relaxed and informal.

Prayer is a natural expression between two individuals, God and the person praying. Unfortunately, prayer has become very religious, formal, stiff, and coming from a place of performance. When some people pray they seem to be thinking about the people listening to their prayer more than they are thinking about God. These “prayers” become more preaching to people than they are a pure conversation with God. But that is not prayer. Prayer is a conversation, simple and direct, between you and God himself. God is more focused on the heart of the person praying than He is on the words being spoken in the conversation.

Prayer is not something people do to God but a conversation people have with God. It often seems like some people feel they are more caring and compassionate than God Himself.  Therefore, they have to “pray through”, “press in” or “contend for” breakthrough. It’s as though, God is the great “Reluctant One” who is holding out on answering our prayers. If we pray harder, longer or get more people to pray, perhaps He will be convinced to do something for us. And if He doesn’t respond to our requests, maybe he’ll respond if we throw in some fasting. It’s a mistake to think that we are more concerned and caring about people, the advancement of God’s kingdom or the need for revival, than God is. There is often a “persevering”, “praying through” and “contending for” but it is not aimed at overcoming God’s reluctance. The fight of faith is not a fight against God’s reluctance, but against the devil and his works of darkness in the world.

When we pray, we are not coming to a solemn, severe judge; we are coming to a loving Father. When my children were small and I would come home from a day at work, they did not greet me with, "Oh, great and mighty pastor, wonderful teacher of God’s word, powerful minister of the Gospel, gracious provider of all our needs!" They were more intimately related to me than that. They would run and jump into my arms and tell me what they had been doing that day. That is what prayer, having a conversation with God, looks like. Jesus said that when you pray, pray to your Father.

What conversation has God started with you today? Have you sensed a prompting to talk with God? Don’t hide, trying to avoid His presence or His word like Adam and Eve did. They felt shame because of their sin, which grew into an unhealthy fear of God.  A healthy fear of God will cause us to run to Him while an unhealthy fear of God will motivate us to avoid Him. They were sin conscious. When we are born again, we are no longer to be sin conscious, but righteousness conscious. “God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21. Join in on the conversation, God is asking you, “Where are you?”