Listen to this post NOW on Beyond Everything Radio!

What was Jesus doing in the desert and not eating for forty days? Matthew’s account reads:

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ² And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” (Matthew 4:1-2)

Scripture reveals that Jesus “withdrew” from the crowds or his disciples for the purpose of prayer.

“And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.” (Matthew 14:23)

“And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.” (Mark 6:46)

“And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed” Luke 22:41

Today’s lesson from observing the life of Christ is that prayer is a sacred, life-giving connection, more than communication. In that sense it’s subjective, not objective. The reason our prayer lives suck is that religion gave us objective, ritualistic prayer. We took Jesus’ example for how to pray and liturgized it. We enshrouded prayer into a fixed framework of “first this, then this…” and drained all the subjective dynamism out of it. Prayer is not a stagnant formula of words to memorize and recite, it’s the flow of life from Source to transponder, like the power flow of a cell phone resting upon a charging station.

Prayer is our humble posture...an internal bow. It’s the longing of the beloved for his or her Lover. In churches, I’ve met so-called “prayer warriors” who take great pride praying long, elaborate prayers for others. I used to feel deficient next to such people, but as I’ve followed Christ into the depth dimension, and experienced many of these prayers, I’ve discerned a qualitative gap between the simple honest connection to one’s Maker, and a verbose filibuster about oneself. If during the “corporate” prayer time at church, we find ourselves rolling our eyes, looking around, or observing others, it’s not entirely our fault. Many prayers in religion are mere “filler” for the service. We’ve been trained to not really expect anything to happen. We are better served in communities that press beyond the surface level of prayer. Consider Jesus’ words:

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.⁶ But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ⁷ “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:5-7)

Jesus’ prayer isn’t corporate. It’s isolated. It’s in darkness and secret. The spiritual practice of contemplative prayer (contemplation) is how we will fix our faith. We will follow Christ into the dark night of the desert isolation and assume His posture of “not my will”. We are free to petition the Lord, but if prayer is only a list of requests, then prayer is seeking God’s hand, not His face…God has become a vending machine, or a Santa for grown-ups.

I ask you, what comprises the bulk of your prayers? If there is ultimately nothing more important than our connection to God, why would we pray for anything other than to receive God Himself?

Our prayer life sucks because we never reach the depth dimension, skimming over any honest self reflection or self-criticism. Prayer changes us before it ever changes our circumstances. A faithless or superficial prayer that pretends God can’t see is a worthless vapor.

“And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5:15-16)

If we are to fix our faith, we must heal and mature in how we pray. Prayer is not to be a thing we do as part of our spiritual life, prayer is our life. Romans 8:34 says Christ is “indeed interceding for us.” Colossians 3:4 says “Christ is our life.” When it seems like the thread of divine connection is broken, it only seems that way from our end. God upholds this union with us as evidenced by our very life. We are existing because God is giving away His existence through us.

Every aspect of our life can become a lived out prayer… a wordless, dynamic flow, whereby we join in the trinitarian flow of the Godhead. As God contemplates Himself and us, so we join in that contemplation. Doing the dishes becomes prayer, when it is self-emptying service. Commuting becomes prayer when intension displaces distraction. Nothing competes with prayer. Prayer is the conscious bringing of our interior posture, into all external activities.

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:22-23)

Prayer is the means by which we discover ourselves “nested” in God. I ask you, if Jesus is God, then to whom is he praying? May I offer that Christ is opening up His portal of self-talk? We are all familiar with talking to ourselves. So let’s start there.

Enlightened minds have discerned through self talk that the thinker of our thoughts and the observer of our thoughts are NOT the same persona. The contemplative who frees their mind of intrusive thoughts, find presence, and overwrites mental malware scripts is far closer to God in prayer than pressing our face in a prayer cloth five times a day, or reciting something memorized. Once we discern the “voice” in our head from our voice, then we can pay closer attention to who’s talking. That brief moment of attention is the fertile ground for a contemplative life. It’s where we stop compartmentalizing everything.

If we are to fix our faith and have 2025 be a year unlike all previous ones, then blow up your wineskin (framework) of prayer. Start fresh. Start small. Start with sitting still and quiet for five minutes. Find the inner posture of bowing, rest humbly and non defensively. Then sit with no words. Observe your mind trying to kidnap our inner self with thought or emotion. It tries to convince us nothing is happening. It’s a waste of time. Don’t pay attention to that voice. Lovingly invite yourself back once you notice you’ve drifted off. Let it all go in exhalation. Simply be for a few minutes. This may feel like torture or boredom. If it does, it’s because the false part of us is dying. Find five minutes a day for wordless prayer. This is where it starts, in darkness and solitude. In the desert of life. Gradually add more time or more often until you truly understand what it means to be hidden in Christ and found in God, and prayer becomes the whole of life.

Then watch the mountains start moving.