Praying When There are No Words

How do you define prayer? For much of my life, I have defined prayer as talking with God.  Most of my prayers have been filled with my own words either spoken or thought.  I have used prayer methods like the ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication) acrostic and some written prayers, but much of my prayer life has been of the extemporaneous variety, filled with words that relate to whatever my current circumstance demands.  While these voiced or thought out prayers are very important and have been critical to my spiritual formation and growth in my relationship with God, I often found myself wondering if there was something more. I knew about prayer as also listening to and receiving from God, but in practice, I was at a loss for how to actually do this. 

Perhaps my emphasis on “doing” was the issue. It has only been in the last few years that I have been introduced to the idea that my spiritual formation is not completely dependent on me.  I suppose I have known this all along, but more recently, I have realized how deeply the idea of accomplishing my spiritual work as an additional task on my “to do” list had settled in my understanding almost subconsciously.  As far as being able to surrender this idea of doing and allow God to do the work in me, the process was unclear.  It was a mystery to me akin to the idea of moving my belief in God from my head to my heart.  How does that happen exactly?  I wanted that to happen and desperately needed it to happen, but the mystery of the how continued. 

Fortunately, I was introduced to a spiritual practice that fostered this idea of allowing space for God to do the inner work in my life, in my soul, that I so desperately needed, but could not do for myself.  This practice is called centering prayer and I have found it to be incredibly valuable to the process of deepening my faith.  As an ancient prayer practices, Christians have been using centering prayer for centuries. 

Because of the help I have found in this practice, I thought I would share more about the process if you are interested. These are a few steps to guide your practice of centering prayer.  First, recognize God’s presence with you and enter into a time of surrender to God.  For many, selecting a word or phrase to focus on during this time of stillness and silence can be very helpful as a way to center your mind.  We know that thoughts will flit in and out of our mind during this prayer time and it is important to receive those and let them go without judgement.  It is not a time to think of how you may not be “doing” the practice correctly.  Remember, this is a time to be still and allow God to do the spiritual work within you.

You may choose to open your practice with a brief scripture or prayer text.  Then, you enter into the silence.  You may choose to spend a specific amount of time or leave your prayer time open ended.  When I began to surrender into this practice, I began with one minute as the stillness and silence is something to get used to, especially in the bustle of our current day.  After the time you’ve allotted is over or when you are ready to end your prayer, you may find reading another brief passage of scripture to be helpful.  A tool I have found to be incredibly useful for this practice is the Centering Prayer app. It offers timers, scripture, and prayers to guide your practice.  Once your practice has come to end for the time being, you may want to move into a time of voicing your prayer to God or you may want to spend time reflecting on your experience with God.  What did you notice?  What is different now?  What is the same?

A word I return to again and again as my focus word is “beloved”.  Saying it as the 3 syllable word we are used to can be a powerful reminder of our true identity in God.  In fact, centering prayer has changed me the most through deepening my understanding of my true identity: God’s beloved.  Not only has this understanding impacted my view of myself and my relationship with God, but it has impacted my interactions with others as I see all humanity as God’s beloved as well.

Another way I have used the word “beloved” in centering prayer is by modifying the way I think of it during my focus time as a verb: be loved. In focusing on the word in that way, I have found that I am desperate for this reminder each time.  I so frequently flit from thing to thing and forget the importance of stopping and receiving God’s love for me.  It is in this receiving, I am more able to give God’s love to others.  I struggle to stop, but it is in the stopping that I will be more able to serve.

It is through this practice of centering prayer that I found my faith deepening and moving to a more centered place, perhaps to the place I have always called my heart.

In the days in which we live, may we free ourselves from striving to find the right word, the right prayer and instead surrender to the freedom that God in his great love provides.  May we fall into the love God offers and receive it fully, so we can pour it out.