Why pray?

Reflections on the necessity of prayer and a few resources.

Why spend time praying?

Well, for one, we pray because Jesus told us to. In Mt 6:8, he says, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” The Father, he knows everything. So the Psalmist declares, “Your eyes saw me unformed; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be” (Ps 139:16). At first glance, these passages seem to discount the necessity of prayer. Not so. Look at Jesus’ imperative in Mt 6:9: “This is how you are to pray: Our Father in heaven…” Still, Jesus commands us to pray, because in praying we acknowledge our dependence, we embrace humility, which is to say, we embrace who we really are as creatures. In praying, we come to our Father in need.

In the first place, we can say we pray because Jesus tells us to. Plus, as Christians, we’re to model our lives on Jesus’, and Jesus himself prayed. Jesus models prayer — all throughout the Gospels we see Jesus at prayer. But let’s go a bit deeper. However, before we do, we should get a basic definition of prayer on the table.

What is prayer?

In a nutshell, prayer is a loving conversation with God. It’s a conversation with the God who loves you. It’s a conversation with God in love. Peter Kreeft, author of Prayer for Beginners, explains how natural this should be: “Can you talk to a friend? Then you can talk to God, for he is your Friend. And that is what prayer is…Prayer is so simple that no method at all is needed.” It’s not a matter of a right formula or doing this to get that. It’s not mechanistic. It’s not a matter of technique. God is not a divine robot we are trying to program a certain way so as to get him to do something for us. Prayer is about love — a loving conversation.

Now, a conversation involves speaking and listening. Listening is perhaps the most critical element of any good conversation. If there’s no listening, a dialogue devolves into a monologue. In prayer, we talk and listen to the Lord. So, listening is most critical. Kreeft, puts it this way:

“In a conversation, if you are the wisest, it makes sense for you to do most of the talking. If the other person is wiser, it makes sense for you to do most of the listening…Well, prayer is conversation with God, and it makes no sense for us to do most of the talking. We ought to be listening most of the time.”

Why do we pray?

Theologically, we can say that we pray because prayer is what we were made from and what we’re made for.

In Genesis 1:26-27, we hear:

Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth. God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

The Persons of Trinity are in a kind of trialogue — they’re having a conversation as God. And, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). So, the persons of the Trinity are having a conversation in love. In short, they are praying.

And, what are they praying about? They’re praying about us. They’re praying about making human beings in their image and likeness. It’s worth stopping to think about what this means for a few minutes.

What does it mean that human beings are made in and are to be the image and likeness of God? Without going down a huge rabbit hole, we can get at a simple answer in at least two ways. First, we ought to note that after Genesis 1, we next see those words “image and likeness” in Genesis 5:3, which says, “Adam was one hundred and thirty years old when he begot a son in his likeness, after his image; and he named him Seth.” Based on contextual evidence, then, we see that here, “image and likeness” refers to filiation, to sonship — Adam and Eve were the created sons and daughters of God. As such, they were God-like. An image points to the model — it refers to it. An image reproduces its own prototype, as John Paul II says, like a child’s very being reproduces that of his or her parents. Our idiom that a child is a “splitting image” of the parents is indicative of this.

We should also note that ancient Hebrew — the language the Bible was first written in — is an active and non-abstract language​. The word “image” denoted the reality as present. This is why the Israelites could not have images or statues. Crafting a statue was an act of idolatry because the statue would somehow contain the reality. We have no problem making the distinction between reality and statue. For example, I can say I’m not praying to the statue of Jesus, but to the one the statue represents. In ancient Israel, this was not possible.

Let’s get back to “image and likeness.” The Hebrew word for “image” is selem. This denotes “function.” It has to do with carrying out a function. The Greek word for “image” is ikon, which denotes presence. To be made in God’s “image” means the human being contains the function (what God does) and the reality/presence (who God is). So, if Genesis uses the word “image” for man, it is being decisive and precise. It’s to say God’s “function” (what God does) and his “presence” was in man. In other words: Man participates in the divine. He has within himself a divine “spark”, a divine “presence”. The human being mediates God’s presence in the created order and communicates with God on behalf of it.

Human beings are that part of God’s creation that stands in a unique relationship to him. We participate in creation as God’s presence within it. We are God’s children, borne from his prayer — who participate in his own conversation through our own conversation with him. In this way, we see prayer in both our origin and our destiny. We were made from prayer and for prayer.

Made for Prayer

We have been made to communicate, to be in communion with God for all eternity. So, prayer corresponds with my destiny. When I pray, I get a foretaste of eternity. Prayer propels me towards fulfilling my purpose or destiny: sainthood. Sainthood is simply eternal life with God. We are all called to be saints, so we are all called to pray. Kreeft echoes this, when he says:

“Prayer is necessary because without it we cannot attain the meaning of life, the end and purpose of our existence. Becoming saints is the meaning of life…It is why God created us…[All of God’s stupendous effort in salvation history] was for one end: to make saints, to make little Christs, to give his Son brothers and sisters. The whole universe is a saint-making machine. And prayer is the fuel that powers it…Prayer is the first step in becoming saints. The second step is charity, a life of love, the ecstasy of giving ourselves away over and over again forever, as each of the Persons of the Trinity do. But this is prayer too, or the extension of prayer.”

When we pray, we remember our origin and anticipate our destiny. When we pray, then, we really live. When we pray, right now, we abide with the God who is our origin and our destiny — we participate in God’s communication that he shares with us. We abide in God (cf. Jn 15:1–5) who wants us to have life and have it abundantly (cf. Jn 10:10).

Getting Started with Prayer

Prayer is a necessity for the Christian life. Despite this fact, many of us (myself included) struggle to as well or deeply as we should. Sometimes we don’t pray at all.

For any of my readers looking to commit (or recommit) to a daily practice of prayer, I encourage you to check out this post about making an appointment with God. Or, if you’re looking to pray more deeply with Scripture, I’m happy to share this guide to Lectio Divina.