Praying Without Words
Prayer Series 001: Three Ways to Deepen Your Life of Prayer without Words
Praying for a Broken Toe
A friend of mine once broke his toe.
Like, literally, his big toe was pointing in the wrong direction.
This happens when you play basketball in church cafeterias with makeshift rims and tiled floors…
So I take him to Urgent Care.
He can’t afford the treatment.
So he asks me to drop him off at a friend’s place.
This friend happened to be a hyper-charismatic pastor.
When he saw the toe, without hesitation, he says with grave serious tone, “Let’s pray.”
And right then and there…
In the middle of a quasi-luxury Los Angeles Apartment complex, dude screams at the top of his lungs…
In the name of Jesus!
I command this toe to come back into alignment!
Be healed in the mighty name of Jesus!
I was so embarrassed.
Like. Bro. There are other residents here. And we may as well offer a prayer for the health care system if we are going to speak with such unabashed assurance! Also. This is a pretty nice apartment! Can’t you drop a friendly hundo to help my buddy go see a doc???
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that my buddy’s toe is back in place now… so I won’t go there. But it is.
I know.
What? 🤷
Your Imagination of Prayer
We all have a certain imagination of what prayer looks like.
Maybe for you it isn’t screaming for supernatural disruption of phalangeal dislocation.
But for many of us we grew up with the image of prayer as a specific moment when words are offered to God.
More often than not, it’s some sort of request beyond our control with a hoped for outcome.
As a child, my constant image of prayer was the sound of my mother and father crying out for God’s help and guidance at the altar of small immigrant church sanctuaries.
While beautiful and legitimate (and in the case of my friend’s toe — hilarious), the ultimate end of prayer is not to get something from God, but to live in union with God.
One pastor puts it like this:
Do you have a prayer life or are you living a life or prayer?
To this end, I have come to find praying without words as a penultimate practice of living in union with God.
Below are three ways to deepen a life of prayer without words.
01 Prayer as Scanning the Room
Have you ever been in a room (whether crowded or alone), when to your surprise, someone you know and love walks into the room?
You make eye contact.
You smile.
You are so glad to see them.
All at once, your mood, your thoughts, and your expectations of how the day will go begin to shift.
This is praying without words —
Taking notice of a loving God walking into the space you are located in.
Brother Lawrence calls this practicing the presence of God.
Whether washing the dishes of his monastery or quietly making sandals for the poor as his simple labor, Brother Lawrence lived in constant awareness of God. He speaks of having so much joy and affection in his heart from “an habitual silent secret conversation of the soul with God” that he had to moderate his outward joy when it would be socially inappropriate.1 Yes. A little weird to have to restrain your natural state of joy. But amazing.
In praying without words, we shift from living on autopilot to being aware of God’s Presence in the room.
Take a moment to consider, right where you are, God is present. A loving Heavenly Father who is for you and working redemption within and all around you is near.
02 Prayer as Reading Scripts
Prayer without words creates space for reflection.
Reflective prayer can be the difference between living reactively and living with intention.
The Old Testament calls this inquiring or waiting upon the LORD.
In prayer, we take pause to think deeply about what narratives are playing out in our minds.
How are you making sense of your life and the world around you?
What self-sabotaging or God-forsaken narratives have you unknowingly subscribed to? I will never be enough. I will always struggle for belonging. I am worthless without this person or institution’s favor. Etc.
My previous bishop used to speak a great deal about how pastors can operate with a practical atheism. Meaning, we believe in God, but act as if there is none.
When we approach God in prayerful reflection, we pay attention to these “scripts” and replace them with the story of a living God who is up to something good!
Take a moment to prayerfully reflect on the narratives that are driving your life today. Quietly name and surrender them.
Or if that’s too abstract, consider this three part prayer prompt: What do I feel? What do I value? How is God inviting me to show up?
03 Prayer as Action
I can tell my wife and children that I love them. And I should.
But I convey my love moreso through the folding of clothes, preparation of food, helping with their homework… every action and inaction is a form of communication.
So too is our life of prayer.
Everything we do is an act of prayer.
When we practice kindness instead of gossip, we offer the prayer, “God I wish to be made into the image of your Son.”
Every time we refuse to participate in a system of injustice, we offer a declaratory prophetic prayer, “God let justice roll live a mighty river.”
When we think of our entire lives as an act of prayer, we finally arrive at spiritual formation — an integration of faith and life, so that everything we do becomes one congruent offering of worship unto God.
Consider what is on your calendar for the next two hours. How might you see your upcoming appointment, commute, leisure, etc. as an act of prayer?
Thus begins a series of teachings on prayer — a vast world of which I am still yet a recent migrant. I pray these words are of help in your journey towards a life of unending union with God.
I invite you to comment below or message me your experience and reflections on praying without words.
Grace and Peace,
Rev. Mike Whang
If you’ve not yet read it, you need to purchase Brother Lawrence’s book The Practice of the Presence of God. I am here making reference to page 36 of the twentieth printing from November 2005 of the 1967 publication by Baker Book House Company (PO Box 6287 Grand Rapids MI 49516-6287). Inside citation joke for the chairman of the Nexus Board.