No need to fear prayer
Most People have trouble with prayer because prayer is really an act of love and therefore demands vulnerability. Prayer is where we most directly face the truth of ourselves and of the world: it is risky business indeed. When I feel the fear associated with this vulnerability, I find it reassuring to remember that the word prayer comes from the Latin root precarius, meaning to depend upon grace.
Because of fear of depending on grace, conscious intentional prayer – which should be the most honest, loving enterprise of the human heart sometimes becomes one of the most dishonest it seems we will do almost anything to restrict its inherently radical nature. We try to confine it within private habits and institutional structures, going through its motions without facing its disturbing endless freshness.
We even devise hierarchies of prayer in which one form is more mature and sophisticated than the next. It is difficult for most of us to even think about prayer without being concerned about “doing it right” or comparing our prayer to someone else’s.
But, don’t be concerned about your form or style of prayer. Seek only honesty and truth, come to your best sense of your desire, and just be there as you are, with Jesus as Jesus may be. He is your mediator between you and God. Feel free to experiment. If structure forms of prayer arise that seem natural to you, you need not restrain them. Allow as much openness to radical freshness/expression as you can, yet be willing to give yourself to ritual or routine if that is what seem most authentic to you as you pray.
Prayer is wonderful gift from God. Don’t let your pride or ignorance get in your way of growing closer to God through prayer. Be in a prayer group set aside time each day to prayer. Prayer avails much, (James 5:16) helps others, (1st Tim 2:1) and helps you to live a life worthy of his call and you will be honored in the process. (2nd the 1:11-12.)