God is a conversationalist. He speaks. He has always been speaking. Speaking is so much a part of who God is that the second Person of the Trinity is called “the Word” (Jn 1.1, 14). The Father is the Speaker, the Son is the Word, and the Spirit is the Breath that carries the Word of the Father. God speaks within the Trinitarian family eternally.
The conversation of God was so full of love and life that, by it, he created the heavens and the earth to join in. The apex of God’s creation was his own image: man. To be the image of God means many things, but one of the primary meanings is that man is a conversationalist. Man is made to speak.
The primary conversation in which man is to join is the eternal conversation of Father, Son, and Spirit. We call this prayer. From the beginning of creation, God speaks to man, explaining the world and giving him his mission. Man is to respond, not just in obedience (though that is certainly true), but, as he grows, to participate in the conversation with Father, Son, and Spirit to talk about how the world should be shaped and how that needs to take place. Abraham does this when the talks to Yahweh about Sodom and the cities of the Plain in Genesis 18.
Prayer is not, as ancient and modern pagans alike characterize it, speaking to an aloof deity with whom we share little in common except some need that we have for one another. Prayer is not the appeasing or appealing to an other-worldly, cold, bureaucrat. Prayer is a family conversation. All who are part of the family should want to join the conversation.
Just as in our creaturely conversations, so in prayer, we get to know the Triune family better as we spend time around what he says to us through his speech (that is, the Scriptures and Sacraments) and we respond by speaking with him about what we have heard. As in our earthly familial conversations, we give thanks for graces given to us, we praise people for doing great things, we talk about our needs, we discuss the situations going on in the world, and we talk about the future. Sometimes the conversation takes on more formal forms. Other times we are less formal. All of it, however, remains a family conversation.
Through this conversation, our familial bonds are strengthened as words deepen our connection with one another. We are encouraged because we know that we are not alone, that we are loved, and that we have “our people.” God and the entire earthly family who joins us in the conversation are our family.
The world, the flesh, and the devil put up hindrances and distractions that seek to divert us from the disciplines of prayer because prayer is so powerful. Our words are joining with the words of the God whose words created the whole world from nothing. When we pray, the world is shaken up (Rev 8.1-5). Not only this, when we pray, we ourselves are strengthened, encouraged to stay in the fight … the last thing our enemies want.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray in Luke 11, he was teaching them how to enter into the divine conversation; to desire what God desires, to share his aims, to become a part of the conversation and the mission that goes along with it. He encouraged them that, because the one to whom they were praying was their Father, that he would not give them a serpent when they asked for a fish, or a scorpion when they asked for an egg. They don’t need to worry about being rejected. They could come into the conversation without fear. Indeed, they could enter the conversation with supreme confidence.
Prayer can, for many of us, seem intimidating. We don’t always know how to pray as we ought (Rom 8.26-27). Others are so much better at it than we are. Will God really hear the halting words of a little child or an ineloquent adult? Will God hear the words of someone who doesn’t know all of the intricacies of theology? Can I really participate in this conversation when there are so many more around me who are so much smarter than me? Will I look stupid?
Well, while we can all grow in our conversational skills, we must remember with whom we are speaking: our Father. This is a family conversation, and all the family members are not only welcomed but encouraged to participate. What’s more, is that your Father desires to hear what you have to say because he loves you. He’ll help you keep growing in your conversational skills as you listen to him through the Scriptures and learn from other brothers and sisters, but he genuinely wants you to get in on the conversation at whatever level you can because he desires this fellowship with you.
So, Christian, join the family conversation. Pray.
