Prove it! Prayer

For many teenagers, the whole subject of prayer is a mystery. Amy Welborn helps them understand what the Church teaches, and why what the Church teaches is right.

This paperback has 128 pages. It's available for $6.95 plus S&H. Order here»

INTRODUCTION...7

SECTION I - I Don’t Need to Pray Because . . .

• CHAPTER 1 . . . God’s In My Heart All the Time...15

• CHAPTER 2 . . . God Already Knows Everything I Feel: I Don’t Have to Tell Him...21

• CHAPTER 3 . . . God’s In Control: My Prayer Doesn’t Influence Him...27

SECTION II - I Want to Pray, But It’s Difficult Because . . .

• CHAPTER 4 . . . I’m Too Busy...41

• CHAPTER 5 . . . I Don’t Know Where to Start...47

• CHAPTER 6 . . . Meditation is Weird...53

• CHAPTER 7 . . . I Can’t Concentrate...63

• CHAPTER 8 . . . The Bible is Too Hard to Read...71

• CHAPTER 9 . . . Memorized Prayers are Meaningless...81

• CHAPTER 10 . . . I Don’t Know Whether It’s God

  I’m Hearing, or Just Me...89
  

EPILOGUE: Prayer and the Rest of Your Life 97

APPENDIX: Suggested Prayers and Bible Passages 101

Introduction

Where would you be without your friends?

Imagine life without them. Pretty wretched thought, isn’t it?

No one to vent to about your parents. No one to help you put life in perspective. No more incredibly intricate inside jokes. No one to confide in about your hopes and dreams of becoming a professional surfer/pediatrician. No one to help you edit your English paper. No one to write your English paper. Just kidding about that last one. Friends are really a gift from God, and you know it.

A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter;
he who finds one finds a treasure.
A faithful friend is beyond price,
no sum can balance his worth.
— Sirach 6:14-15

How did your friendships start? How did they develop? What’s the most important thing you do to keep those friendships going? Would communication have anything to do with it?

Endless telephone conversations. Secrets. Confidences. Laughter. Tears. E-mail and instant messaging. Jokes. Notes in class. Eyes rolling in despair as your geometry teacher plods through yet one more proof. And hugs. Can’t forget hugs.Now, try to imagine a reverse situation. Imagine there’s a person running around school proclaiming his deep and abiding friendship with you to everyone he sees. The problem is, you barely know the guy.

Sure, you gave him change for a dollar once in front of the soda machine, and he suffers through biology class with you, and no way he’s your enemy, but friends? Hardly. How can you be friends with someone you never talk to?

Oh.

Boy, you are good. You’ve connected the dots all by yourself, without any help from me.

How can we be friends with God if we never communicate with Him?

Now, let’s get one really important thing straight before we go on. God is friends with us no matter what.
More than friends, in fact. God loves us deeply and yes, even passionately.

How do you know this?

Because He made you, that’s why.

If you really believe that God created you, you can’t avoid the conclusion that He loves you. After all, God doesn’t make things by accident. Everything He does is completely, totally on purpose. And that includes you.

So, next time you’re lying in your room, feeling a bit sorry for yourself and singing the “nobody understands me” song, remember that: I’m here. That means I’m loved.

So when it comes to friendship, the problem is not on God’s side. From His point of view, there’s no problem. He’s our best friend, most intimate and faithful lover, and most passionate and protective parent, all rolled into One. The One.

But, as the old saying goes, it takes two to tango. And how in the world can God dance with you when you’re just hiding in the bathroom, obsessing over your hair in the mirror?

In other words, if you’re not feeling close to God right now, if God is distant and totally mysterious and religion is quickly becoming just a bunch of words and abstract ideas instead of something personal and powerful, did you ever stop to think about the reason why?

When was the last time you prayed, anyway?

Oh, come on back. I didn’t mean to get you all huffy. I know — you have been praying. You’ve been saying your prayers every night before you go to sleep ever since you could talk. You go to Mass. You say grace.

But still . . .

Things aren’t like they were when you were younger, are they?

Just like your friendships, prayer was really simple when you were little. When you played with your friends, it was all very uncomplicated. You got together, you shared, you had fun. Prayer was pretty much the same way: You never had a hard time trusting that your simple words were shooting straight up to God’s ears and that He was listening.

But now, years later, everything is just a bit more complicated. In every part of life, it seems.

Friendships are more complicated, and maybe even harder to maintain. You’re discovering that people are pretty profound creatures and not always easy to understand. You could, of course, continue conducting friendships on a totally superficial level, but while that might be fun, it doesn’t satisfy for long. It takes time and, more importantly, an emotional investment to build good friendships.

A friendship with God is exactly the same way. It’s not that our words need to get fancier or our prayers longer and more intricate just because we’re older. Not at all — every prayer Jesus prays in the Scriptures is a model of simplicity, as a matter of fact. No, it’s our hearts that need to expand.

In other words, to have a healthy and powerful friendship with God, you need to share with Him the greater depths and complexities you’re discovering in yourself every day. No more coasting. Put that skateboard away.

That’s not easy, for a lot of reasons: We’re afraid. Other things seem more important than God. In fact, if things are going well in most areas of our lives, we may not even really feel the need to deepen our friendship with God.

But do you know what?

God’s still there.

Ready with love, ready with grace, ready with healing, ready with answers, ready with nothing less than wholeness and utter peace.

If you think life is good now, just imagine what it would be like if God, the source of all love, all peace and all joy, was a more intimate part of it. Just try to imagine the vivid hues life might take on if you were walking around looking at it not just through your own eyes, but through the filter of what God has to say about it all: His very own creation.

Are you listening?

No matter how you answered that question up there, this book is for you.

If you answered “no,” then I hope you’ll find a reason or two to go ahead and start listening to God’s voice in your heart.

Even if you answered “yes,” I would bet good money that there’s another word fighting to come out after that affirmative: “ . . . but.”

But I’m not sure whether it’s God I’m hearing or those are just my own thoughts.

But I really want to pray at a deeper level.

But I’m just a little scared to put my whole self into this prayer thing — who knows what will happen if I do?

I hope this book will help you answer your questions, too.

There’s one thing you have to remember, though. Reading about prayer and expecting your life to magically change and your spirit to suddenly soar to the heights of heaven is about as realistic as thinking dinner’s going to appear on the table just from reading a cookbook.

You’ve got to do it. You just have to — pray, that is.

You have to scrape out a little time — just a little — maybe ten minutes a day — to be absolutely by yourself, away from people, away from noise (turn off that stereo, I’m telling you!), to be alone with God and put what you’re learning into practice. You also will most definitely need a Bible, so if you don’t have one, go back to the store where you bought this little masterpiece and spend a little more money.

And if you’re tempted to say “no, not now” to this adventure of deepening your relationship with God through prayer, take a minute before you run off to do all of those much more important things, and ask why.

Why don’t I want to pray more?

Once you have your answer, imagine saying it. Not just to anyone, though. Open up your imagination and in that fertile field, picture yourself explaining why you don’t want to be closer to God, to . . .

. . . the One who’s waiting for you like a father waiting for His prodigal child.
. . . the One who’s searching you out like a lost sheep every single time you wander away.
. . . the One who has said “Go, your sins are forgiven” more times than you can count.
. . . the One who formed you in your mother’s womb.
. . . the One who died, nailed to cross.

I thought so.

See, there is absolutely nothing to fear from prayer or the God you’re going to meet in that prayer place. He loves you. Forever. No matter what.

And He’s waiting.

Let’s go.

Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else
than an intimate sharing between friends;
it means taking time frequently to be alone
with Him who we know loves us.

— St. Teresa of Ávila, Life