I saw one of those canvas carry bags you get at conferences recently with words on the side which said "Prayer, Finding the Heart's True Home.  As we begin the season of Lent we are reminded in the words of the Ash Wednesday service that it is a time for "self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and reading and meditating on the word of God."  The thing most commonly associated with Lent tends to be fasting of some sort ("giving things up"), with special giving projects and extra study coming in a close second.  Perhaps because we assume it is something we do all of the time, we generally don't think of prayer as something to be taken on especially in Lent.  The truth is that none of these "spiritual disciplines" are intended for Lent alone.  Lent is a particular time to focus on them, but at least in part, also to imbed them in our lives as part of our faith journey through the rest of the year.  Prayer is particularly important as it goes hand in hand with the other disciplines and is vital in making them fruitful in our lives.  Working on our prayer life in Lent allows us to nurture this central part of our relationship with God, deepening and enriching all aspects of our life of faith.

Unfortunately we can often misunderstand what prayer is all about.  A common comment about prayer is that prayer "works".  There is a sense in which that is correct, but the implication can often be that it works because the things happen that we want to happen; or simply that good things happen when we pray.  There is no doubt that they do - but the most important and best thing that is happening is that we are praying. 

Prayer is converse with God.  Encompassing both our corporate worship on Sundays and our personal daily devotional times, prayer intentionally recognizes that God is present and listening, and that God cares about what we have to say.  Just as any relationship between two people is not likely to go anywhere without communication, so prayer is the communication which is fundamental to our relationship with God. 

One of the concerns which arises around prayer, although usually only personal prayer and intercession, is the question of why we might need to tell God about our needs, concerns and petitions.  After all, God knows all and can therefore be assumed to know not only what we are going to pray for before we pray it, but perhaps what we ought to have prayed for instead of what we actually did.  As one wise Anglican prayer says, "you know our need before we ask, and our ignorance in asking; grant our requests as may be best for us." The question is a good one and the prayer above gives a good hint as to the answer to it.  That line about "our ignorance in asking" says much.  The letter of James puts it bluntly, "you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly" (James 4:3) While God already knows what we're going to pray, we are very often not in tune or even in touch with God's will.  Prayer is about relationship, but unlike a human-to-human relationship where we are getting to know each other and learn from each other, this one is about our returning to God, being reconciled, shaped and changed into what God is creating us to be; to be transformed into the image of Christ.  When we pray for the hungry or the sick, God is at work in us by the Holy Spirit, uniting us with those for whom we pray, and training and shaping us into compassionate people.  God's Spirit is teaching us solidarity with them, drawing us toward action for their good, thus making us more like Christ who fed the hungry and healed the sick.  Interestingly, in the ancient Church there was an understanding that those who prayed for the hungry but declined to provide what they could to relieve their hunger had actually failed, making their prayer barren or fruitless (James 2:15,16 reflect a similar thought).  Of course, sometimes we are unable to do anything for those in need, and prayer alone is what we are called to, for God does actually answer prayer beyond the workings of our own best efforts.  So prayer, far from being the way we inform God about our needs and wants, is actually about surrendering ourselves to the will and ways of God and standing in solidarity with them.

This however, takes us to the other great concern about prayer.  It is about converse with God, which implies not just one speaking, but two.  In other words, listening is essential to prayer.  Often we speak about prayer and studying the bible as separate things, but personal devotional reading of scripture is an important and essential element of daily prayer.  It is the most important place to hear God's end of the conversation.  Whether we read a passage from the daily lectionary (we provide them in the leaflets each week), or read something prescribed by a daily devotional booklet, time to read, reflect and meditate upon scripture is the other half of prayer.  You might notice that in the Daily Offices of the Church (morning and evening prayer) there is always a balance between hearing scripture, praying scripture, and making our own petitions and intercessions.  Of course, simply reading is not what I have in mind.  Time to listen in silence to what God is saying in our hearts after we have finished the reading is also vital.  And there are other ways that God can speak to us as well if we are attentive:  through the prayers of others when we pray in a group; through devotional books and written reflections; through prayerful encounter with creation in which God's love is written in concrete things.  None of these can replace scripture, which is our primary source, but they work alongside scripture as ways through which God can speak.  Perhaps one of the most important things to remember is that God wants to converse with us and is speaking to us constantly, longing for us to listen and attend.