The following is an extract from "God in all Things" the sequel to "God of Surprises", by Gerald Hughes SJ
No one is able to pray! Prayer is a surrender of our whole being to God, so that God may be the God of mercy and compassion to us and through us. Too much conscious effort can kill prayer! Prayer is about letting the Spirit of God pray in us. The Spirit who lived in Jesus, and raised him from the dead, now lives in us.
Prayer is about being still, so that we can become more perceptive and more responsive to God. In prayer ‘Heart speaks to heart.’ God, who is love, speaks to us, and we speak from the heart to God. Our prayer does not have to be articulate, well phrased or eloquent, but it must be sincere, honest and without pretence. Prayer may be groans and grumbles; it may be ‘ahs and ‘ohs’, or it may be wordless; but it must be ‘me’. Each person is unique in the sight of God and for this reason there can be no single way of praying. The simper the prayer, the more honest and heartfelt, the better it will be. The Psalmist tells us to ‘Be still, and know that I am God’ (Psalm 46:10)
Stillness is important in prayer so that we can become more aware and sensitive to the promptings of God within us. The English cartoonist Calum specialised in God cartoons. God was usually portrayed as a tubby figure, resting on a cloud, his head haloed, hands joined on his large tummy. He would be looking down on earth and commenting on what he saw and heard. In one cartoon God is observing choirs down below singing hymns of praise and he remarks: “I’ve had a fair amount of adulation in my day’” During Church services I often imagine Calum’s God addressing the congregation and saying, ‘ For heaven’s sake, shut up and stop trying so hard; be quiet and listen for a change’!
To what kind of God do we pray? Our idea of God is derived from our life experience. For those of us who are brought up with an awareness of God, this usually means that the idea comes first from our parents, then from siblings, teachers and preachers. We tend to create a God in our own image and likeness, or in that of our Church or our nation. We can therefore have some very fearsome images of God! In this way we have managed for centuries to justify killing one another, each side in war claiming to be fighting ‘Pro Deo et Patria’- ‘For God and Country’. This same habit of creating God in our own image and likeness has also enabled us to foster suspicion and hatred against people of other faiths or of none, and against Christians of different denominations. We convince ourselves that we are being loyal servants of God in attacking God’s ‘enemies’ and suspecting the worst in them.
We need to be still in prayer, so that God can teach us who God is, as distinct from us teaching God how God ought to be! It is good to begin every prayer with, at least, a short period of stillness, even if only, for a few seconds.
Prayer is about being still, so that we can become more perceptive and more responsive to God. In prayer ‘Heart speaks to heart.’ God, who is love, speaks to us, and we speak from the heart to God. Our prayer does not have to be articulate, well phrased or eloquent, but it must be sincere, honest and without pretence. Prayer may be groans and grumbles; it may be ‘ahs and ‘ohs’, or it may be wordless; but it must be ‘me’. Each person is unique in the sight of God and for this reason there can be no single way of praying. The simper the prayer, the more honest and heartfelt, the better it will be. The Psalmist tells us to ‘Be still, and know that I am God’ (Psalm 46:10)
Stillness is important in prayer so that we can become more aware and sensitive to the promptings of God within us. The English cartoonist Calum specialised in God cartoons. God was usually portrayed as a tubby figure, resting on a cloud, his head haloed, hands joined on his large tummy. He would be looking down on earth and commenting on what he saw and heard. In one cartoon God is observing choirs down below singing hymns of praise and he remarks: “I’ve had a fair amount of adulation in my day’” During Church services I often imagine Calum’s God addressing the congregation and saying, ‘ For heaven’s sake, shut up and stop trying so hard; be quiet and listen for a change’!
To what kind of God do we pray? Our idea of God is derived from our life experience. For those of us who are brought up with an awareness of God, this usually means that the idea comes first from our parents, then from siblings, teachers and preachers. We tend to create a God in our own image and likeness, or in that of our Church or our nation. We can therefore have some very fearsome images of God! In this way we have managed for centuries to justify killing one another, each side in war claiming to be fighting ‘Pro Deo et Patria’- ‘For God and Country’. This same habit of creating God in our own image and likeness has also enabled us to foster suspicion and hatred against people of other faiths or of none, and against Christians of different denominations. We convince ourselves that we are being loyal servants of God in attacking God’s ‘enemies’ and suspecting the worst in them.
We need to be still in prayer, so that God can teach us who God is, as distinct from us teaching God how God ought to be! It is good to begin every prayer with, at least, a short period of stillness, even if only, for a few seconds.
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