I’m sure you’ve had the experience of getting caught in a one-sided conversation: your friend goes on and on talking about everything under the sun, from the inane to the profound, including traffic jams, low barometric pressure, rising gas prices, arthroscopic surgery, and mortgage interest rates. You wonder how this person can say so much and still breathe. One thing is sure, when you’re on the receiving end of a one-sided “conversation,” you realize that your thoughts don’t matter.
Sadly, our prayer lives get this way too. We come to God with a wish list and go on and on about all the things we want. In the end it’s all a monologue. We take center stage and rattle on about our needs, our feelings, our wishes, our worries, our fears, our demands. It’s all about us. Will we let God get a word in edgewise, and do we care what he has to say?
A more humble approach is to let the Lord go first. Turn to the Scriptures, the “Word of God,” and allow the Lord speak his good words of comfort, consolation, challenge, and rebuke to your soul: be open to all he has to say! Then let the truth to sink in (don’t hurry) and see how the Lord prompts you to pray in response. You may be surprised at the new requests you make.
This way prayer becomes a conversation: God speaks to us through the Word, and we reply with praise, confession, thanks, and petition. Does your prayer life include two-way communication?
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