How to Be with God

I don’t watch any of those TV shows about police teams – you know, NCIS and its spin-offs, Law and Order and its spin-offs . . . none of them. Don’t have anything against them; just never got started and therefore never hooked.

But every once in a while, I feel like I’m missing some cultural knowledge (and maybe vocabulary) because of my lack of exposure. For instance, apparently police officers these days (at least on these shows) wear these earbuds for two-way radios so they can communicate with headquarters? So, like, they have constant access to somebody “downtown” – that person may pop in at any moment and say something in their ear, and they can at any time hold down a button on some device (on their hip, I’m guessing?) and say something to their downtown person. Instant communication. Something like that? I can imagine it . . . I’ve probably seen it on some show sometime . . . but I don’t know the nitty-gritty of it all.

The only reason I bring it up is because my friend used this earbud thing in a brilliant analogy about prayer that has stuck with me for a couple years. Prayer is having God in an earbud – constant two-way access at any point of the day.

I love this. I have long had the idea of prayer as not talking with God necessarily, but just being with God. Like being with your spouse in the evening. You don’t have to be talking or cuddling on the sofa or specifically engaging in any way. But they are there, in the room. They are a presence, available to listen to a random thought that comes up, or share a laugh about a funny line in the book you’re reading, or just stroke your hair a little when they walk by to go to get a snack out of the kitchen.

And they are there when a need arises. To call your phone when you’ve lost it somewhere in the house. To get ice for your pinky toe you just stubbed hard in the middle of the night. To listen to your fears and calm you down when you’re in the middle of a panic attack.

God is there. At all times. (I often wish he was physically here – would have loved to have sent him to the kitchen for ice for my pinky toe last summer.)

I’m aware that this relationship I have with God now is a real blessing. I wish I hadn’t had to go through all the crap it took me to get here, but I’m still grateful. I have known friends who believed in God and had committed their lives to him, but they still felt he was very distant. They didn’t feel comfortable praying alone – and certainly not out loud. I was so sad for them. Because I’ve been there, too, feeling far from God. And I don’t want to go back.

And then I’ve had other friends for whom God’s presence was so real, they would stop in the middle of a conversation we were having and just look up and say a few words to him. Legit. I catch myself doing that sometimes now, too.

I’m trying to remember how I got to this comfortable place in our relationship. What did I do? I mean, I know God was always reaching out to me . . . what did I do that was an effective reaching back?

I think it was when I started writing out my prayers.

When my eldest was a baby, I made a commitment at one point to pray for at least thirty minutes a day. (I don’t remember what prompted that – probably one of those “gotta whip my sorry spiritual self into shape” moments.) And my newborn baby with the wacky schedule she required was getting in the way of meeting that goal. So, I started writing my prayers whenever I had time, and logging the minutes I spent, just so I could keep track.

I remember looking back through that prayer journal later and laughing. At first, my words were all pious and churchy. Then after so many days of my time being disrupted with baby duties, my prayers ended up just being constant complaining. Why won’t you just let this kid sleep?? I thought you wanted me to talk to you. I can’t do that unless she SLEEPS!!!  Lots of repetitive question marks and exclamation points. Lots of all caps and underlining for angry emphasis. Being forced to talk to God whenever I found a few minutes to do so (in an effort to meet my daily quota) meant that I had to talk to him at times when I was feeling decidedly unpious and unholy.

And by golly, he still listened. I suspect he was probably enjoying those conversations much more than my rote religious words when I was calm. At the very least, I’m sure I was more entertaining. And thankfully, I was finally being real.

Over time, I put away the journal and started just talking to God in my head in the same conversational way. But I still go back to writing my prayers once in a while (I’ve been doing it this summer). It slows me down, helps me focus when my brain feels scattered. I will often be writing a question out and hear him answer me in my heart before I’ve even finished the sentence.

So, there’s a thought for you all. If you’ve never tried writing out your prayers, give it a shot. Like a letter. Or just shoot a friendly word to the sky while you're cooking dinner. Or an angry word. He loves them all. And he'll have good words to shoot back . . . if you've got the ear bud in there ready to listen.