Spiritual FormationSample

Prayer

In the book With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God, Skye Jethani explores the ways we’ve tried to relate to God. In some cases, people relate to God as if He is lording it over them, while others try to relate to God by service and works. Neither of these ways acknowledges the invitation to live life with God.

One of the main concepts of living with God that’s explored in this book is an encouragement to reimagine prayer, to experience prayer not simply as a way of communicating to God or serving God but rather as a way of communion with God.

Being with God in all of life is the idea of being in constant prayer with God that Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Brother Lawrence (who lived as a lay Carmelite monk in France in the 1600s) was able to discover this close communion with God even while he was serving in a busy kitchen in a monastery. His experience of practising the presence of God is recorded in a little book of letters he wrote to the Abbott, who noticed the calm nature of Brother Lawrence and asked him to share his experience.

It is this type of prayer we’ll seek to nurture as one of our spiritual formation practices. As we go about our ordinary activities today, let’s try to talk with God and ask for His peace to dwell within us.

Written by KATH HENRY