You Can Just Talk to God

Trying to build a relationship with God without prayer is like trying to improve a relationship with your partner without actually talking to them.

You can read Attached all day, ponder which love languages speak to you the most, talk to your therapist and your friends—but until you engage face-to-face with another, that relationship is going nowhere. Similarly, it is easy to skirt around the edges of God. You can read the Bible, talk about God, discuss geopolitical trends in religion and their impact on culture, meditate with your own thoughts1, or sit in church and do everything except the one thing that will truly bring you near to God—talking to Him.

One of the reasons I started writing years ago was my struggle with prayer. My busy mind had no desire to be corralled into a conversation with a God who felt so far away– so I started writing to Him. It was easier to focus my mind while writing my scattered thoughts rather than trying to articulate them verbally.

As my faith has matured, I’ve felt a growing desire to connect directly with God. I feel immature, young, and childish coming to a Divine Creator I’ve known all my life with such deep doubts, emotions and desires. Shouldn’t I have figured this out by now, Lord? Shouldn’t I be able to easily tap into the joy and freedom You give me?

We have a direct lifeline to the One who can fill up our souls. That’s insane. If you could call a coach at any moment of the day for advice instead of mucking around on your own trying to figure out what to do when you’re stuck, you’d be amiss to ignore that.

While living in New York, I attended a church2 that held an all-night prayer and worship on New Year’s Eve. From around 7pm until sunrise, people gathered to come celebrate, worship and talk to God. Around 1am, I danced in five glasses of champagne deep from another party, excited to spend time with God and fellow believers.

That evening still feels like a blur. Not because of the drinks, at 24 years old five drinks was barely a buzz. (Thank God for a hard-working liver…) I do remember vignettes of scripture reading around different themes, interspersed with music and prayer. At some point that night, an unexpected wave of… something… hit my heart.

For most of my twenties, I pushed my struggle with control and my body so far down that I barely even knew it was a problem.3 The ongoing internal commentary on the imperfect body in the mirror, the food I ate, or the exercise I did (or didn’t do) was only quieted by alcohol—but only for a brief moment of bliss when the narrator took a sip. In that brief moment, I’d have a bite of something that wasn’t a kale salad and immediately spiral into overwhelming regret.

All this coexisted with the joy and bliss of being in my early twenties and living in New York City. (You might guess at this point—a lot of things have coexisted in some kind of strange harmony in my life…) I had an amazing community of friends, was traveling all over the world and had a great career. Life was good, but in this compartmentalized corner I was so unhealthy. I wasn’t skinny enough to have a problem, I told myself. Sure, I hadn’t had a normal cycle in five years and obsessively tracked my BMI, but that was fine, right?

I let it all go that night, bringing my inability to get over myself to God. I spilled out my heart to a few women—I don’t remember their names today—and they prayed over me. When I walked out to a glowing sunrise on 8th Avenue on the first day of the year, it was with a renewed spirit and a sense of freedom. Thanks to God.

He has continued to meet me in prayer, both in prayer alone and like that night, with others.

A few years later I was living in LA and made a dear friend—Hannah. She would pick me up in her gold Toyota Corolla4, and we’d hold hands in the parking lot of a strip mall and pour our hearts out to God. Hannah prayed big prayers—not hesitant to ask God to work and expect Him to move. Hearing her speak with God inspired me to be more bold.

There is something special about going to God in the company of another. You get to know someone on a deeper level when you pray together. There is something binding and intimate about coming before God together. Hannah and I don’t live in the same city anymore, but we still find little moments on the phone to talk to God together. It was on my heart to have a prayer night here in Austin5, and our little group has now been praying together since November. There’s no programming, no preaching—we simply sit on the floor of my living room and talk to God. It’s humbling to see how God is working. Would peace of mind, clear paths for making hard decisions, or physical healing have come without talking to God? Perhaps—but now I know where credit is due.

Praying isn’t akin to using a vending machine. You don’t slip in a shiny silver prayer, twist the knob, and out drops the result you requested. Though I do believe prayer has the power to change things in our physical realm, I more often see how clearly prayer changes my heart. The peace in my heart during low times doesn’t make sense. My joy increases. My ability to grow through and endure hard things expands.

I’ve been praying that God would continue to give me His perspective and expand my imagination. You get a little taste of life with His divine perspective and you can’t go back. The daily highs and lows that try to occupy my mind are trivial compared to God’s view of life– and oh, how I want to see that perspective more in every moment of my days.