Conversational Prayer

Before Jesus gave His disciples the Lord's Prayer or the Model Prayer as it is also called, He taught them how to pray. I find great comfort in knowing that He desires that we pray sincerely and simply, and that God is turned off by phony pray-ers and insincere, manipulative people. Their prayers are directed at their audience in the guise of addressing God. Don't ever think that those who seem more spiritual than you do have a special "in" with God.


Many Christians pray fervently in a heavenly prayer language, cry aloud to God, dance in the Spirit, and feel that their prayers are not effective unless they intercede with such passion. God certainly hears their prayers and answers, but because He knows that we are all different in our personalities and walk with Him, He lovingly receives and responds to those saints who pray in a quiet persistent way. What a relief to realize that can be ourselves when we pray. 


God doesn’t want to hear long speeches either. He simply wants to carry on a conversation with us. Simple, conversational prayer is talking with Jesus about the everday stuff of life. It’s being yourself and talking with a friend who’s easy to talk to. Its like curling up on a soft sofa for a leisurely chat.

Richard Foster wrote, “We do not pretend to be more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we actually are. We do not try to conceal our conflicting and contradictory motives from God—or ourselves.” (Foster, Prayer, 10.) Conversational prayer is being as real and truthful and transparent with the Lord as we can be. We can relax and be ourselves.

In addition, some Christians love to talk and will pray for hours on end. Others don’t enjoy talking at all and will offer brief prayers while many of us fall in between. How little or much we talk to the Lord has nothing to do with whether He hears us or not or the effectiveness of our prayer life. God knows us better than we know ourselves and hears us just the way we communicate.

We don’t have to learn how to talk better or be afraid He will criticize or tune us out. We don’t have to keep apologizing for the way we talk or keep trying to explain what we mean because we fear He’ll misunderstand us as others may do.

We can talk to the Lord without thinking ahead about what we need to say in order to persuade Him to hear and answer us. Rosalind Rinker said, “The more natural the prayer, the more real He becomes. It has all been simplified for me to this extent: prayer is a dialogue between two persons who love each other.” (Rosalind Rinker, Prayer: Conversing with God, 23.)

Conversational prayer is talking heart to heart with the One who knows us better than anyone else. It’s a mutual friendship for the Lord desires we know Him with the intimacy that He knows us. We can even sit quietly together without trying to fill silences.

We are safe and secure and can have complete trust in our soul Friend, the One with whom we can tell our personal concerns and will keep our deepest confidences. Being with the Lord is the most intimate of all relationships.

Conversational prayer is so much more than talking to the Lord. O Hallesby wrote, “Prayer is a definite attitude of our hearts toward God, an attitude which He in heaven immediately recognizes as prayer, as an appeal to His heart. Whether it takes the form of words or not, does not mean anything to God, only to ourselves.”  (O Hallesby, Prayer, 16.)

Prayer may be a moan or tears without any words. It may be as brief as a beggar’s plea. When blind Bartimaeus was sitting by the roadside begging and heard that Jesus was coming, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The crowd rebuked Bartimaeus, but he shouted the same prayer all the louder until Jesus stopped and called to him (Mark 10:46-50).  

“‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked him. The blind man said, ‘Rabbi, I want to see.’ 


‘Go,’ said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you’” (Mark 10:51-52b). 

What a simple exchange between Bartimaeus and Jesus and with such a miraculous answer. We have this misconception that the longer and more eloquent our prayers the more power we have to persuade God.

Crying out, “Jesus,” is the most powerful name we pray. We can cry out His name in times of desperate need, when we long for a sense of His presence, or to stand against temptation and He will hear and respond.

In Hallesby’s book, Prayer, he wrote, “Prayer is something deeper than words. It is present in the soul before it has been formulated in words. And it abides in the soul after the last words of prayer have passed over our lips.”  (O Hallesby, Prayer, 16.)


Finally, God welcomes our prayers about our daily concerns and daily needs. As Richard Foster said, “Very simply, we begin right were we are: in our families, on our jobs, with or neighbors and friends. Now, I wish this did not sound so trivial, because, on the practical level of knowing God, it is the most profound truth we will ever hear. To believe that God can reach us and bless us in the ordinary junctures of daily life is the stuff of prayer.” (Foster, 11.) To believe that God hears us and responds to us just the way we are frees us to be ourselves when we communicate with Him.