Learning To Pray

I am reminded again, now that summer is almost upon us (and the weather is getting warmer and walk-friendlier) of the necessity of prayer.  I pray best while walking in the woods (and warmer weather certainly makes that more conducive).  But prayer is more than simply finding opportune times.  It is about learning the mind of God.  Indeed, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his little book on the Psalms:

“The phrase ‘learning to pray’ sounds strange to us.  If the heart does not overflow and begin to pray by itself, we say, it will never ‘learn’ to pray.  But it is a dangerous error, surely widespread among Christians to think that the heart can pray by itself.  For then we confuse wishes, hopes, sighs, laments, rejoicings - all of which the heart can do by itself - with prayer.  And we confuse earth and heaven, man and God.  Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one’s heart.  It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with Him, whether the heart is full or empty.  No man can do that by himself.  For that he needs Jesus Christ.”

Let us remind ourselves of this discipline beyond feelings or opportunities and learn the language of true prayer.