Prayer as Relationship.

        A second essential element of prayer is relationship. Prayer as relationship reveals a deeper level of meaning and power in the mystery of prayer. Most of us pray in time of need. We invoke God when urgencies or dangers arise without developing an abiding relationship with God. Saint Symeon the Theologian tells how as a young man he began fervently to invoke God like the blind man who called out to Christ “Son of David, have mercy me!” Soon afterwards he was blessed with a sublime vision of Christ radiant with the uncreated light of divinity. However, Saint Symeon completely lost this spiritual treasure and turned to worse wickedness because of immaturity, carelessness and lack of a stable relationship with God. When we call upon God with consistency, spend more time with Him in prayer and look after our Christian lives with care, prayer can lead us into deeper knowledge of God and thus to an abiding relationship with Christ.

        How do we come to know another human being as a person? Is it by knowing anatomy, psychology or history? Although all knowledge is helpful, the best way to know another as a unique person is directly and specifically: by looking into that person’s face and eyes, by talking and spending time with her or him, by sharing hopes and fears. Most human relationships are rather casual and often marked by a certain distance and remoteness. Sometimes even spouses and family members, living in immediate physical proximity, nevertheless experience a sense of distance. How can the distance be eliminated and a true connection of hearts and minds be established? The key is the willingness to enter into relationship through honest dialogue and the desire to share life, thoughts and activities.

        Prayer is a way of looking into God’s face and allowing Him to look into our own. Prayer is a way of talking and spending time with God, a way of bridging the gap and establishing a personal relationship with Him. Not infrequently Christians confess that they do not feel close to God. Despite their good works and participation in worship services, God seems remote and distant. He is a kind of impersonal “force” throughout the universe rather than a loving Father who embraces our whole life and abides in our hearts. The key to bridging the distance and removing the sense of remoteness is the willingness to enter into relationship through honest dialogue and the desire to live in nearness to God. Developing such a relationship with God, just as with other people, requires a free, conscious choice to know God through personal encounter. The most direct and personal way of doing that is through regular times of prayer. Working for such a relationship seems risky to most of us because it may entail significant changes in our lives. The saints assure us, however, that experiential knowledge of God is an adventure in divine love which is both judging and healing, forgiving and illuminating, cleansing and transfiguring. Prayer does not diminish us. Rather it enhances our lives with the grace and beauty of God.

        A number of image in the Bible and tradition exemplify prayer as relationship. To pray is to speak with God. Prayer as dialogue suggests a continuous relationship with God in which prayer is not only talking with but also listening to God as we seek to grow in our relationship with Him. Saint John of the Ladder uses the striking image of prayer as a mirror, or the light of the mind which shows where we stand spiritually. Prayer as true dialogue is a conversational journey of give and take, including ups and downs. However, the dialogue must be deeply personal and completely honest because formal prayer and ritual can sometimes be a way of avoiding God and evading the personal encounter with Him while being satisfied about fulfilling our duty to Him.

        Another image is that of prayer as food for the soul. Prayer provides needed daily spiritual sustenance. We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” but the most important Bread is Christ Himself who said not to labor for the food that perishes but for the food of eternal life, His grace. Our physical energies would be quickly depleted without regular material sustenance. To attain to its proper strength and vigor, the soul needs the constant food of daily prayer.

        Saint John of Kronstadt uses additional striking images. Prayer is spiritual breathing gardening. Our lungs breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, eliminating toxicity and receiving renewing power. Prayer is the ongoing spiritual breathing of the soul — we breathe in the grace of the Spirit and we breathe out sin. In our modern age, let us call prayer spiritual air-conditioning. Prayer, according to Saint John of Kronstadt, is also gardening. Gardening involves planting and weeding. Left unattended, a field grows weeds and becomes wild. Attentive, persevering prayer plants spiritual flowers but also takes out the weeds, the unhelpful attitudes and destructive habits, from our lives and the life of the Church so that both can truly be a beautiful garden testifying to God’s presence and glory. To quote a theological student: “Prayer for the Christian is like water for a plant. If the plant is watered, it lives and thrives. If it is neglected, it dries out and eventually dies.”

        Prayer as relationship is anchored on the biblical truth of covenant — diatheke — a word that in its more traditional rendering of “testament” names the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. Covenant defines the entire history of salvation as a dialogical relationship, reciprocity, partnership, synergy and mutual loyalty between God, the main actor, and His people, the recipients of His blessings. The Mosaic Law and the Temple were given so that the Israelites could live as the holy people of the holy God. Saint Paul draws from this covenant imagery of the Old Testament when he tells the Corinthians that the Christians themselves are now the living Temple of God and that they were to lead holy lives in spiritual separation from the world. “For we are the Temple of God; as God said: ‘I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people . . . I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty’” (2 Cor. 6:16-18). Accordingly, our relationship to God is not merely one of isolated partnership but of family relationships, a covenant of love and faithfulness lived and celebrated in community — God’s holy people.

        Prayer as relationship entails freedom on both sides as it is appropriate to God and to His people who are His sons and daughters. God neither forces nor intimidates human beings to respond and obey Him. On our part, we can neither control nor manipulate God to accomplish selfish designs. Prayer is a dynamic, free-flowing relationship of ups and downs in which, just as in the case of parents and children, we are allowed to express not only our thanks and requests to God but also our honest questions and even complaints. The great Moses never made it to the Promised Land. Jacob tried manipulation but ended wrestling with the heavenly Stranger before being blessed and re-named “Israel,” meaning “one who strives with God.” He called the place of his struggle “Peniel,” meaning “the face of God” and said: “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved” (Gen. 32:24-30). Jonah unsuccessfully tried to escape his task of pronouncing doom, knowing that a merciful God would not follow through with destruction. When the Ninevites repented and were forgiven, a humiliated Jonah complained bitterly to God.  “Are you angry?” God asked. Jonah replied: “I am angry unto death.” Recall also Peter, the leader of the apostles. He whom Christ called “Rock,” nevertheless nearly sunk in the water and later denied Christ three times. Are not these images reflections of our own open-ended relationship with God, our waverings between faith and doubt, trust and uncertainty, hope and despair as we seek God’s hand in life?

        A difficult question is that of “unanswered prayer.” A story tells of a man who fell off a cliff and managed to grasp a bush on the way down. “Help, help!” he yelled. From above, a voice answered: “Pray!” The man hesitated a moment, and then said: “Is there anyone else up there?” Beyond the humor of it, there is a serious aspect to this tale. Our relationship with God includes times of pain and testing. I do not refer only to people with a superficial view of God as Santa Claus who quit spiritually because they, according to their false perceptions, do not get immediate satisfaction of their desires. There are cases of long-standing Christians who have turned away from God because of immense suffering and no apparent help. We have no easy answers to “unanswered prayer.” As believers, we point to Saint Paul who suffered from “a thorn in the flesh,” probably a periodic, debilitating ailment. Saint Paul asked the Lord three times to take it away. The Lord said: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:7). While the answer to the specific plea was “no,” Saint Paul perceived a larger “yes” of affirmation by God. He understood the negation of his request as a check against spiritual pride on account of the abundance of revelations.  Saint Paul broke out into a triumphant cry: “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of God may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).

        We can also point to the dramatic scene of Christ at Gethsemane. He prayed three times to be delivered from death by crucifixion. He prayed with tears and cries to the Father: “Remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my own will, but thine, be done” (Lk. 22:42-44; Heb. 5:7-8). The Gospels do not report an explicit answer to Christ’s agonizing plea. Events showed that the answer was “no.” However, we can be sure that Christ knew inwardly that He had to drink the bitter cup for the life of the world. He recommitted Himself to this act of love, death on the Cross, to rescue us from the powers of sin and corruption. The experience of prayer gave Him, just as it did Saint Paul, a larger, more inclusive “yes” about His identity with the Father and the Father’s purposes about the salvation of the world. Thus Christ came out of the Gethsemane prayer with new assurance and strengthened courage to face His holy passion according to God’s will.

        Unanswered prayer? I do not believe there is such thing. God answers our prayers in various ways, whether directly or indirectly. His answer can be “yes,” “no,” “wait,” or something different than what was requested. When we do not receive the answer we want, or the wait is long, we must allow God to act according to His freedom and wisdom. We must be patient and open to understanding why it had to be “no” or “wait” or a different answer altogether. We believe in God’s love and goodness. We trust in His redeeming purposes. We humbly accept His providential will over us knowing that “in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).