Learning to Pray

"To learn to pray" sounds contradictory to us. Either the heart is so overflowing that it begins to pray by itself, we say, or it will never learn to pray.  But this is a dangerous error, which is certainly very widespread among Christians today, to imagine that it is natural for the heart to pray.  We then confuse wishing, hoping, sighing, lamenting, rejoicing--all of which the the heart can certainly do on its own--with praying.  But in doing so we confuse earth and heaven, human beings and God.  Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one's heart.  It means, rather, finding the way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty.  No one can do that on one's own.  For that one needs Jesus Christ.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prayerbook of the Bible

"Whether the heart is full or empty."  Sometimes I think we forget that prayer--being a privilege, a mystery, and an altogether crazy concept--is also a discipline.  It's something we have to practice, and to learn.  And that those times we sit down to pray and feel devoid of words or prayers to offer, we should pray anyway.  And can pray anyway, because, really, prayer isn't about us.  And it certainly doesn't originate in us.  It's a picture of grace that we get to pray at all.

I'm glad we get to pour out our hearts, too, though, when they're sighing and rejoicing and all that.  ...And that we have a really patient teacher.