Despite the revolution in the social media, conversation with friends or family is not everyone's gift. If you go into a restaurant you will find the younger customers looking down at their cell phones or other devices, surfing the web, checking email or text messages, rather than engaging in conversation with their families or friends. Couples stare into space or look at the television screen with nothing to say to one another. It is true that some people are more verbal than others. Conversation requires revealing yourself to another. This is scary business. We grew up with the adage "less said, soonest mended." We learned to suspect those who talked too much. The person who kept his counsel was admired e.g. George Washington. Yet intimacy is the result of sharing our innermost thoughts in the context of a safe, nonjudgmental relationship. A relationship will be only as good as its communication. Learning to converse with God, who is unseen, ratchets up the ante. If it is difficult to speak with someone close to you, or a stranger, how much more difficult it must be to talk to someone who is unseen yet very near - who knows everything about you? How intimidating is that?

The nature of our relationships determines how comfortable we are in conversation with that person. If it is a challenging relationship in which there is mystery (you don't know enough about them), or there is a history of conflict, or hurt, or disappointment, there is the tendency to be careful what you say lest you be misunderstood, or say the wrong thing, or spark a retort. Sometimes it is like walking on egg-shells. The relationship either has to proceed slowly, or it needs to be mended, reconciliation has to occur, before you can be relaxed in your conversation with that person. We tend to keep people at a distance with our conversation to avoid being drawn into sharing our feelings, or personal convictions, and therefore become vulnerable to criticism.

Do you keep God at a distance in your prayers? If there has been disappointment, or conflict, in your relationship with God, you have to find some way to trust him. You have to address the problem before it can be solved and you can go forward. It requires some humility to admit the problem and seek reconciliation and forgiveness. You have to seek the light if you are to find clarity and understanding. You have to be honest about your feelings, and find whatever healing is needed. You can't fake a relationship with God any more than you can fake it with an acquaintance. In order to develop a healthy relationship with God, as with a friend, you have to be willing take the time to work through the difficulties.

Those difficulties may include being willing to be honest about your inadequacies, your doubts, your questions, your past experiences, which you are tempted to cover up and deny so that you can feel better about yourself. If you wish to be taught by Jesus to pray you must be willing to allow him the time and the attention he needs. The classroom of prayer requires homework, self-examination, and assignments. Some painful self-study may be involved.

When we enroll in a course of study we have a lot to learn before we can get to the final session and graduate. We have to take one topic at a time and build upon what we have learned. We cannot rush through the curriculum to the end before we have assimilated the material. Prayer cannot be rushed. Our relationship with God cannot assume familiarity before the introductions have been made. Conversation requires preliminaries. Greetings must precede business. A hand-shake or embrace opens the conversation. The groundwork has to be laid before information is shared or requests made. We would never open a conversation with an important person or close friend without taking the time to establish the relationship.

The more intimate and comfortable the relationship the more open you can be with one another. Prayer is a reflection of the nature of our relationship with God. It is also the means by which that relationship can be strengthened. Rosalind Rinker wrote a book entitled "Prayer: Conversing with God." By it, she meant praying conversationally in groups by praying back and forth on a single subject until a new one is introduced by the Spirit. Her book, published in 1959, revolutionized prayer meetings for it fostered prayer relationships between Christian believers.

Why should we want to be taught to pray? Andrew Murray answers: "Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeblest child can pray, it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise. Prayer is fellowship with the Unseen and Most Holy One. The powers of the eternal world have been placed at prayer's disposal. It is of the very essence of true religion and the channel of all blessings. It is the secret of power and life, not only for ourselves, but for others, for the Church, and for the world. It is to prayer that God has given the right to take hold of him and his strength. It is on prayer that the promises wait for their fulfillment, the Kingdom waits for its coming, and the glory of God waits for its full revelation." (With Christ in the School of Prayer, Whitaker House 1981, p.10)

As we have learned of all the natural disasters and revolutions that have shaken the world this year, we have seen how this world is passing away.

"All men are like grass,

and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fail,

because the breath of the Lord blows on them.

Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,

but the word of our God stands forever...

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed

and all mankind together will see it.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 40:5-8)

The only thing that stands forever is our relationship with the Lord. By asking Jesus to teach us to pray we are investing in that which is permanent, that which is eternal, that which has lasting value. Jesus is already praying for us in heaven - interceding for us at the right hand of God. He is preparing a place for us that we may be where he is.

"Lord Jesus. Enroll my name among those who confess that they don't know how to pray as they should, and who especially ask you for a course of teaching in prayer. Lord. Teach me to be patient in your school, so that you will have time to train me. I am ignorant of the wonderful privilege and power of prayer, of the need for the Holy Spirit to be the spirit of prayer. Lead me to forget my thoughts of what I think I know, and make me kneel before you in true teachableness and poverty of spirit. Amen." (Murray, op.cit. p.15)

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