Getting to Know God by Talking to Him

When I was growing up in the church one of my favorite hymns was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.

–Joseph Scriven 1855

Friends talk with one another. They spend time together. It’s hard enough to maintain friendships with flesh and blood people, especially if they live in a different geographic area. I think it’s fair to say that it is even tougher to maintain a friendship with a God we can’t see or touch. Sometimes these conversations with God seem to dribble off of our lips and bounce off the ceiling.

One of the things I really like about John Wimber was the simplicity of his prayers. It probably helped that he wasn’t raised in the church. When I was growing up our church services had a “pastoral prayer,” just another sermon while we were all on our knees. In his personal testimony, “I’m a Fool for Christ, Whose Fool Are You,” John describes a scene where he has come to the end of his rope. He drives out into the Las Vegas desert, looks up at the stars, and cries out to the heavens for help. In the aftermath of the experience he questioned his own sanity. Thinking he needed to check himself into a hospital he went back to his hotel. On his arrival an answer to his prayer arrived in the form of a phone call from his wife.

At that point in his journey with God he didn’t have any experience with talking to God and certainly he didn’t have any experience with hearing God speak to him.

I think I really began to learn about effective prayer while I was attending the Calvary Chapel Packinghouse in Redlands in the Mid-80’s. At 6 a.m. on Friday mornings men would begin to show up at the prayer room which was located just off the sanctuary. After we had gathered, we sang a few songs, and then the pastor would say, “Anything we need to be praying about, or praise reports?” For the next few minutes men would share their concerns for their loved ones who were sick, or going through a tough time. Some would mention a spiritual need. Then the pastor would say, “Let’s pray.” And for the next hour or so we would pray about the things that were on our hearts. No sermonizing or religious sounding phrases, just conversation with a Father we knew cared about the things we cared about.

When we began meeting with a home fellowship we experienced this same kind of praying. It was non-orchestrated and informal, and powerful. And prayers were being answered in a tangible way. People were being healed and living through the tough times of life. This was very different from the way I was raised in the church of my youth and I really liked it.

It was later that I learned about simple prayers of desperation from John Wimber. One of his favorites: Oh God, Oh God, Oh God! Talking to God takes attention and focus, but it should be just as natural as talking to your family or your co-workers. Then there is the listening part of prayer. Most of the time I am too busy to listen to God. Or there are too many distractions vying for my attention. Sometimes God has to really work to get my attention. Nudges and whispers just won’t work.

Now if you were raised in a tradition that doesn’t believe that God speaks to his people today, that’s okay, it doesn’t hurt God’s feelings. In fact, I have discovered that with God, honesty is the best policy. I really like the honesty of the father in Mark 9 who when talking to Jesus said, “I believe, help my unbelief.”

All of this talk about spending time with God reminds me of another old hymn:

I come to the garden alone
while the dew is still on the roses,
and the voice I hear falling on my ear,
the Son of God discloses.

And he walks with me, and he talks with me,
and he tells me I am his own;
and the joy we share as we tarry there,
none other has ever known.

–Charles Austin Miles, 1913

My grandmother was sleeping in the hospital bed my dad had set up in her dining room. The chronic blood disease she had suffered for many years had caused a stroke impairing her ability to speak and making her bed-ridden. Communication was difficult. It was a Saturday afternoon. As we gathered around her bed we sang “In the Garden” and other hymns from church. The tears began to well up in my grandmother’s eyes, and as we joined her, we all sensed that we had been joined by the Son of God. My grandmother knew God as a friend.

A few years later I had been through a disappointing time in the church. A proposal I had made to church leadership had been rejected and I felt distant from God. On vacation in Hawaii I was listening to the latest album of worship music:

Draw me close to you
Never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear you say that I’m your friend
You are my desire
No one else will do
Cause nothing else can take your place
To feel the warmth of your embrace
Help me find the way
Bring me back to you

You’re all I want
You’re all I’ve ever needed
You’re all I want
Help me know you are near
–Kelly Carpenter, Copyright © 1994 Mercy/Vineyard Publishing. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

When the singer got to the phrase, “To hear you say that I’m your friend,” my eyes filled with tears and I made that song my prayer over and over again as I listened to it and it touched my heart. The prayer of Draw Me Close to You, is in its honesty. We are not close to God, we have lost our way and we need him to bring us back. We feel far away because we know that we want so many things that are not God, and while he can fulfill all of our needs, we live distantly from our friend. We pray, “Help us know you are near.”

Having regular conversations in words, thoughts or in song is one way we can deepen our friendship with God.