How Do I Enjoy Communion with God?

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he taught them to pray in this way: “Whenever you pray, say, Father, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come” (Luke 11:2). Of all the things Jesus could have said, he begins by teaching his disciples to address God as “Father.” We know that must have been a shocking statement for any Jew in Jesus’ time, for many Jews believed that God’s name was too holy to even utter. Therefore, the thought of calling the Sovereign one “Father” was unthinkable. Yet, in Jesus’s master course on prayer, this is where prayer begins for the Christian.

If you were to take an honest look at your prayer life right now, do your prayers reflect intimacy with your heavenly Father? Or, are your prayers merely perfunctory, cold, or distant? Part of the wonderous work of redemption is that God, through his redeeming grace, adopted us into his family. We are no longer God’s enemies; now we are sons. Yet, many of us feel that our prayer lives are lacking even though we have a new identity in Christ.

So how do we grow in communion with our heavenly Father? I suggest that we experience greater fellowship with God through regular, purposeful, and persistent prayer. In this short article, we will consider what it means to pray regularly.

Pray regularly. I use the word “regularly” here intentionally. By regularly, I mean that we should pray consistently or methodically. However, in addition to consistent praying, I also mean that we should focus on praying “normal” or everyday prayers. While Jesus taught his disciples to pray daily, he also taught them to ask God to meet their daily needs. In other words, Jesus encouraged his disciples to pray for the “big” things (e.g., God’s kingdom) and the “small” things (e.g., daily bread). We can pray everyday prayers by voicing our daily needs to the Lord. We pray for meetings, meals, frustrations, tasks, etc. The idea here is that regular praying is a means of grace by which we experience fellowship with God throughout the day.

Often when we think about growing in communion with God, we can be tempted to think that if we commit to praying for long amounts of time with intense fervor, then our experience of God will become more apparent. To be fair, I think there should be moments of intense prayer in our lives. Nevertheless, if our lives lack consistent prayer now, why do we think a commitment to try harder in prayer will help us?

This is the same line of thinking many have around New Year’s. How many times have we bought a gym membership and made a commitment to exercise and then within two weeks are back to our old selves? What we need is not a commitment to try harder; we need God’s grace to transform and empower our daily rhythms and habits. Thus, we pray regularly. Regular praying is the daily practice of asking, listening, and abiding with our heavenly Father.

We pray about the little things. We pray about the big things. We confess sin. We give thanks. We pray for others, and we listen. We can do this in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening. We can do this before a meeting or on a walk. We pray before meals and before we go to bed. Regular praying is more concerned about walking daily with Christ than anything else. Perhaps we don’t enjoy rich communion with God because we are still struggling to walk daily with Him.

So how do we pray regularly? A couple of suggestions. First, write down a couple things that you would like to pray about. Make a flash card for your family, church, unbelievers, etc., and carry that flash card with you throughout the day. Second, learn to whisper prayers throughout the day. Regular praying isn’t limited to your quiet time. Learn to whisper a prayer between meetings, during your commute, and maybe take a 5-minute break for prayer at some point in the day. Take a deep breath and trust that God is involved in the daily matters of your life. As you prioritize regularly praying to your heavenly Father, you will find that your communion with Him is growing. You will find that in your praying, God will meet with you as well.