Pray simply. Simply pray.

Give us today our daily bread. --Matthew 6:11

[One of my favorite contemporary prayer gurus is Richard Foster. His book, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home (San Francisco: HarperCollins 1992), will be a frequent reference for me.]



It can be so easy to get caught up in how to pray that we find all sorts of reasons not to get around to praying. We think there must be a right way and a wrong way, and since, after all, prayer is about God, we certainly do not want to get it wrong! 

But the fact is, there is no wrong way to pray.

Richard Foster describes a number of different types of prayer, the first and most elemental being Simple Prayer.

Simple Prayer amounts to coming before the Almighty as a child comes to a parent, crawling up into the warm comfort of his presence and speaking simply, honestly, even angrily-- and sometimes, with seemingly ridiculous requests. Things that anyone other than a loving parent might think were just-- silly.

When Moses is dealing with thirsty, cranky Israelites and cries out to the Lord, "What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me!" That is Simple Prayer.

When Jesus lifts his eyes to the heavens and asks, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" That is Simple Prayer.

In our crazy, everyday lives, there are constant opportunities for Simple Prayer. An impatient boss or coworker, an unreasonable deadline, dinner that stuck to the bottom of the pan-- all these can call forth Simple Prayer.

The magic and wonder of this form of prayer is that it assumes and allows that God is present in the most ordinary, mundane moments of our lives, and wants us to bring even these things before the throne. Especially these things.


God reminded Moses, when he was standing before the burning bush, that Moses was standing on holy ground. To Moses, it was the same patch of ground it ever was, but now-- he had seen that it was, indeed, infused with the presence of the Most Holy One. 

And he took off his shoes. That spot-- and he-- would never be the same.

Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread. Food for the journey. That is Simple Prayer. It invites the Divine presence into the ordinary. Into the kitchens and lunch boxes of our lives.

And the beauty of Simple Prayer becomes obvious: it is personal, and intimate, and invites us, God's beloved children, into God's lap and into God's love, bringing whatever is bugging us straight into the conversation, and letting God take it off our hearts.

* * * * *

Gracious God, help us up. Lift us into your embrace. Coax "it" out of us, whatever might be our simple, elemental prayer. Welcome to our ordinary lives. Amen.

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