Prayer

In the most basic sense, prayer means talking to God. How do we talk to God? You may have heard of the ACTS formula, which stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. It provides a basic template for believers to pray. We talk to God the Father in the name of Jesus the Son with the words inspired by the Holy Spirit.

When I unpack the idea of prayer, I discover depths in my soul that not many have access to. It is where I find the most earnest plea for God's forgiveness for the sins I have committed, sins that I dare not forgive myself for. In those depths, prayer also elicits the most sincere anticipation of a desired future for the soul. By lifting up this anxious yearning to God, prayer creates a bridge from the profoundest part of finite creation to the infinite love of the Creator God. In the depths of the soul, I also bury questions I dare not ask another human being. However, in prayer, God has the access code to retrieve and interact with me on these rawest emotions and threads of ideas.

In recent months, I have discovered another way to pray, not through spoken words, but through written words. Whether it's a two-dollar pen on an ordinary piece of paper or a new and fancy electronic one on a technologically crafted surface of a machine powered by complex components, I find that praying with written words allows me to slow down. It gives God and myself the time and space to explore and dream. It's a sacred suspense where a mere sinful man receives undeserved attention and unimaginable grace from a God who lives and breathes all that is beautiful in this universe.

Forgive me for saying that praying is not always enjoyable. However, when a sinner's heart connects with that of the Almighty, perhaps the infinitely loving story that began in Genesis 1:1 finds an expression in the fleeting being made in God's image, a being made to love and be loved by the only One who knows how.