A praying life (Paul E Miller), chapter 4 - Learn to talk with your Father

I've been really encouraged by this chapter (4). Miller begins by saying: 'How do we learn to talk to our Father? By asking like a child, believing like a child and even playing like a child' p37. Miller then goes onto explain how these points are exactly what Jesus tells us to do when praying.

Now, the idea of asking like a child isn't foreign to me, the idea of believing like a child isn't alien (though it is something I have been convicted of recently, that I need to believe more as I pray). But the concept of playing like a child when we pray seems to go against previous teaching on prayer. I suppose it feels wrong for us just to waffle at the creator of the universe, it seems rude to jump from one topic to the next and if I'm honest I love structure in life. And so naturally the expectation I have always sensed is that we should I suppose be 'formal' when talking to our heavenly Father. Then follows guilt when prayer becomes informal and unstructured. Maybe this 'pressure' has come from ideas like prayer lists, but Miller's point seems really freeing.

Miller points out that a one year old when playing has a very short attention span, ranging from 3 seconds to 3 minutes. He then points out that in normal adult conversation we bounce from one topic to the next. Miller questions, 'Why would our prayer life be any different?' He backs this up by looking at Paul's prayer in Eph 1:16-17.

He sums his chapter up well by saying the following, 'When it comes to prayer, we too, just need to get the words out... It's ok if your mind wanders of your prayers get interrupted. Don't be embarrassed by how needy your heart is and how much it needs to cry out for grace. Remember the point of Christianity isn't to learn a lot of truths so that you don't need to pray anymore. We don't learn God in abstract. We are drawn into his life' p41

This chapter urges us to pray like a child talking to their daddy, openly and honestly. What a great reminder that God is our heavenly father who loves to hear from us and that we are to be the person he created us to be as we pray, enjoying our relationship with Him. And what a joy that the Holy Spirit helps us as we pray to pray inline with God's will and to know what to pray for.