Attentive Prayer
If this idea that prayer consists of attention to God seems strange to us, perhaps it is because we have given up the discipline and no longer really know how to pray. In most of our praying, our attention is neither focused nor on God.
What we attend to is largely our own selves, and this in a rather generalized and ambiguous way. Prayer, both public and private, and particularly among Protestants, tends to be almost totally prayer of petition. We have some need, and we pray that it will be met.
We are in some trouble, and we pray that God will take it away. Even when we do pray prayers of praise, thanksgiving, and confession, we do so with our attention turned to what we are pleased with, thankful for, and guilty of.
We find it extremely difficult to allow our praise, thanks, confession, petition, and intercession to be formed by attention to God, and awfully easy to allow the God to whom we pray to become a mere reflection of our own concerns. At least this is what I experience myself as a prayer and what I perceive in most public worship.
“Simple attentiveness” is most difficult. It is also very important.
—Craig R. Dykstra, Vision and Character
Craig Dykstra reminds us that real prayer is not about turning inward on ourselves but turning outward in simple attention to God. Too often our prayers are filled with requests for our needs, relief from our troubles, or even our lists of thanks and confessions—still centered on us. The danger is that God can become no more than a mirror reflecting our concerns. The harder and holier work is to quiet our restless focus and simply attend to God Himself. This “simple attentiveness” feels difficult because it asks us to step out of the center and place our gaze fully on Him. Yet in that shift, prayer changes: we discover not just answers to petitions, but the transforming presence of the One we are made for. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics