Pursue Closeness with God through a Life of Prayer

Prayer draws us into an awareness of God’s presence. It is a way of being close to His tenderness and love. Let our love of God inspire us to pursue God through prayer. As we pray, we experience thoughts, emotions, and words moving between ourselves and God.

In the time before time, God was. In the emptiness before the cosmos, there was God. In an expression of His very essence, His love, all things have come to be: things that were, are, and will become. All are held within the expansiveness of His tender divine love. All are held within the reality of His unending presence. God’s presence manifests His humility because it does not impose itself. It is possible to move through every moment of our life without noticing the presence of God with us. All that we see, feel, smell, breathe, hear, and know will fade into dust and nothing. Amongst all that fades, we are invited to experience the eternal, expansive presence of God.

God is eternal.
God is with us.
God is for us.

Prayer is a foundational way of being with God. Pursuing closeness with God means that we devote ourselves to prayer. It is the most natural response to God’s love for us. A life of deep and growing love for God must therefore be a life of regular prayer. We let our life of prayer fill the depths of ourselves with the reality of God’s presence.

At the core of the call to follow Jesus is following Him into prayer. Cultivating a life of prayer will always require us to intentionally step away from daily life. This is part of the life of prayer that Jesus modeled for the disciples. Only when we set aside regular time for prayer can our spirit come into resonance with the spirit of God. This prayerful resonance of our spirit begins to transform our lives into ones of prayer. It is in this space we begin to see God’s presence with us in all things. Our prayerful resonance prays in all things.

Resting, dwelling, and living in the presence of God is not without risk. The love and grace of God invites you to become like Him. It is most unnatural in our age to be like Jesus. The cosmos is unkind to those defined by selfless compassion. The eternal person of Jesus is grace, hope, and love. He is the one we pursue. Again and again, in prayer, we will discover the edges of ourselves. These are the real boundaries that hold us in. The edges of ourselves, made or imposed, define our shape. Each of our edges shapes us and defines the ways we know ourselves. We know ourselves by the edges of what we are and are not. We can only be seen and known through our boundaries and limits.

There are no boundaries with God.
There is no bottom to grace.
There is no limit to hope.
There is no end to love.
God has no boundaries.

In the quiet parts of myself, the parts that feel eternal, I feel a love that breaks me. Small bits and moments make prayer everything I could ever long for. In prayer, I come to know God, myself, love, others, and more. Prayer helps me be in the presence of God. God’s presence is His love. God’s love has space for my pain, my loss, my listlessness, my hurt, and my grief. God’s love has space for my delight, my rest, my passions, my excitement, my longings, and my joy. There is no shame in the love of Jesus. It is His love that creates the longing to be more like Him. I am forever becoming what only the love of God, in His mercy, could hope for me to be.

• Reflect on how your understanding of prayer today has changed from 5 years ago (or further back).
• Reflect on how the rhythms of your life reflect your desire for closeness with God, and for a life devoted to prayer.
• Celebrate the ways that God has met you and drawn you deeper into God’s presence through prayer.
• Meditate on a time when God was most present with you in prayer. What was special about that time of prayer, and what was His presence like?
• Pray the Divine Office and make it a part of your life.
• Reflect on freeing experiences and realities around prayer.
• Contemplate the ways prayer and closeness with God are bound together.
• Contemplate the vastness and diverse ways we get to pray with and to our God.
• Spend time with a type of prayer that is new to you, or that you have not done in a while.
• Meditate on what realities and beliefs might keep you from a life more devoted to prayer. Prayerfully imagine how Jesus might speak to you about each thing that comes to mind.
• Grieve the parts of yourself that don’t believe prayer matters.
• Grieve the moments and voices that caused you to believe God did not long to be present with you.
• With honesty of heart, reflect and meditate on what might be keeping you from experiencing closeness with God through prayer.
• Our God is boundless! Ask God to show you what kinds of limits have you put on your understanding of prayer. Invite Him to show you how these limits might keep you from greater closeness with God.