Talking to a God You Can’t See

Why Most of Us Feel Fake When We Pray

If you grew up in church, you probably learned to pray from somebody who sounded like they were on the radio. Big voice. Heavenly Father, we just come before You, we just lift up... You bowed your head and mouthed along but felt like a fraud, because that’s not how you actually talk to anybody in real life.

If you didn’t grow up in church, you may have never been taught to pray at all. So when somebody tells you to try it, you stare at the ceiling and feel ridiculous. Hi God? It’s me? You don’t know if you’re supposed to kneel, close your eyes, fold your hands, speak out loud, use Bible words, end with amen, or what. So you give up before you start.

And then there’s the third option, which is the worst. You actually tried it. You really prayed for something. The marriage. The kid. The job. The diagnosis. And it didn’t go the way you asked. So you quietly decided either God doesn’t listen, God doesn’t like you, or this whole prayer thing is for people who got better answers than you did.

This paper is for all three of you.

Prayer is not a skill you have to be qualified for. It is not a performance. It is not a magic spell where the right words unlock the right outcomes. It is what last week’s paper was about, finished. The Father has you in His hand. Now we talk about how you actually talk to Him.

Get your coffee. Sit down. Let’s take the religious mask off prayer.

Jesus’s Disciples Asked the Same Question You’re Asking

Here’s something that might surprise you. The men who walked with Jesus every day for three years — who saw Him heal the blind, raise the dead, walk on water — didn’t ask Him to teach them any of that. They asked Him to teach them one thing.

“Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.””

— Luke 11:1 (NLT)

Teach us to pray. These were grown men. Jewish men, raised in synagogues. They had been praying their whole lives. And after watching Jesus pray, they realized they didn’t actually know how. Whatever they had been doing, Jesus was doing something different — and they wanted that.

If the men closest to Jesus had to ask, you don’t have to feel stupid for asking. Wanting to learn how to pray is not a beginner’s question. It is the right question.

And here’s what Jesus taught them in response. Read it slowly. This is the foundation:

“This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.”

— Matthew 6:9-13 (NLT)

Notice what Jesus did not say. He did not say use these exact words every time. He said this is how you should pray. He gave them a pattern. A skeleton. Five short pieces. We’ll come back to that pattern in a minute. But first, look at the very first word.

Our Father.

That’s the key. Jesus didn’t teach His disciples to pray to the Almighty Sovereign of the Universe, even though that’s true. He taught them to pray to their Father. Family language. Kitchen-table language. The same word a kid uses when he walks into the house and yells Dad, I’m home.

If you got that one word right, you’ve got most of prayer.

Prayer Is Just Talking to Your Father

Stop and let this sink in for a minute.

The God who made the galaxies. The God who closed your case at the cross. The God whose hand you are in right now. He told you to call Him Father. Not Sir. Not Your Majesty. Not Almighty One. Father.

That’s the posture of prayer. Not a religious citizen approaching the throne. A kid walking into the kitchen because Dad’s home.

“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.””

— Romans 8:15 (NLT)

We talked about Abba a few weeks ago. The closest English word is Daddy. That is the word the Holy Spirit Himself puts in your mouth when you pray. Not because God needs the title, but because you need to remember who you are talking to.

So forget the fancy words. Forget the church voice. Forget what your grandmother sounded like at Thanksgiving dinner. Forget the prayer you heard on the radio. If you can talk to one person at this donut shop in plain English, you can talk to your Father. Same words. Same tone. Same honesty.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.”

— Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

Read that one more time. Tell God what you need. Three words. Not eloquently petition. Not intercede with carefully reasoned theology. Tell Him what you need. The same way you’d ask a real father for help.

If your kid came to you and said Dad, I’m hungry, you wouldn’t correct his grammar. You’d feed him. God is not waiting for you to phrase it correctly. He is waiting for you to come.

What If I Don’t Know What to Say?

Here is something else nobody told most of us. You don’t have to know what to say. Sometimes you can’t, and God knew that going in.

“And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.”

— Romans 8:26 (NLT)

Read that twice. The Holy Spirit prays for you when you don’t know what to pray. He takes your wordless groaning, your sighs, your tears, the heaviness you can’t articulate — and He translates them into prayers in front of God. You are never disqualified by not having the right language. The Spirit handles the language. You just have to show up.

Sometimes the most honest prayer you can offer is one of these:

God, I don’t know what to say.

God, I’m tired.

God, help.

God, please.

God, I’m here.

That counts. All of it counts. The Father is not grading your prayer. He’s listening for your voice.

When Jesus was in His own deepest crisis, in the garden the night before the cross, He prayed one of the simplest prayers in the Bible:

“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

— Luke 22:42 (NLT)

That’s it. Please take this away. But Your will, not mine. Two short sentences, both honest. If that’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for you.

The Simple Pattern Jesus Gave Us

Go back to Matthew 6 for a minute. Jesus gave His disciples a pattern with five pieces. You don’t have to use it every time. But if you don’t know how to start, this is a great handrail.

One. Start with Him. Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Before you ask for anything, remember who you’re talking to. Take a second to acknowledge it. Not because He needs the praise but because you need the reset. You are not talking to a vending machine. You are talking to your Father.

Two. Want what He wants. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. This is a hard one for most of us, because what we want and what He wants are not always the same. But this is where prayer changes you more than it changes your circumstances. You start telling God you trust His plan more than yours.

Three. Ask for what you need. Give us today the food we need. Today’s bread. Not next year’s. Just today. God wants you to ask. He wants you to bring real, daily needs. Bills. Cravings. Health. Kids. Sleep. Whatever is in front of you today. Ask.

Four. Deal with sin. Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. This is where you come clean about what you did and where you let go of what was done to you. We’ve done four weeks on forgiveness already. Bring it into your prayer life.

Five. Ask for protection. Don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. You are not strong enough on your own. The temptation is real, the enemy is real, and pretending otherwise is how people slip. Tell God you need His help to make it through the day clean.

That’s it. Five pieces. Father, Your will, my needs, my sin, Your protection. You don’t have to do all five every time. But if you’re ever stuck on how to pray, that pattern will get you started.

What About When the Answer Is No?

We have to address this one straight. A lot of people quit praying because they prayed for something big and the answer was no. The marriage didn’t get saved. The cancer didn’t go into remission. The kid didn’t come back. The job didn’t come through.

So you have to know this before it happens to you again.

God answers every prayer. He just answers in three different ways. Yes. No. And not yet. All three are answers. All three come from a Father who loves you and sees what you cannot see.

“And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him.”

— 1 John 5:14 (NLT)

Notice that little phrase. Anything that pleases him. God is not a wish-granting genie. He is a Father. And like any good father, He sometimes says no to the thing His kid is asking for because He sees something the kid does not see.

Paul prayed three times for God to take away a thing he called a thorn in my flesh — we don’t know exactly what it was, some kind of suffering. And God’s answer to Paul was no.

“Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”

— 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT)

God’s no to Paul was not God ignoring him. It was God answering with something bigger than what Paul asked for. My grace is all you need. Sometimes the no is the deeper yes.

This does not make the no hurt less. It is still hard when something you wanted didn’t happen. But it does change how you read the no. It is not God forgetting you. It is not God not listening. It is a Father with a bigger view than yours, refusing to give you something less than His best.

Keep praying anyway. The point is not to get the right answer. The point is to stay in the conversation.

Just Start

Here’s the last thing. You don’t need a quiet room. You don’t need a Bible open. You don’t need to be on your knees. You don’t need to know any verses by heart. You don’t need to sound spiritual.

You need to start.

Talk to Him in the truck on the way to work. Talk to Him in the shower. Talk to Him while you make coffee. Talk to Him while you’re staring at a wall at 3 a.m. unable to sleep. Talk to Him while you’re walking the dog. Talk to Him in the parking lot before you walk into a hard meeting. Talk to Him when the craving hits. Talk to Him when nothing is wrong and you just want to say thanks.

“Pray about everything.”

— Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

That’s three words. Pray. About. Everything. Big things. Small things. Important things. Stupid things. The Father is not too busy. He is not bored. He likes you. He wants the conversation.

You are talking to a God you can’t see. But you are not talking to a God who isn’t there. He is right next to you, holding you in His hand, listening for your voice. Start saying something. Anything.

He’s been waiting a long time to hear from you.

TAKE IT WITH YOU

One thought.  Prayer is not a performance. It is not a magic spell. It is talking to your Father in plain English. If you can talk to somebody at this donut shop, you can talk to God.

One question.  What is the one thing you have been carrying alone that you have never actually said out loud to God? Why have you been protecting Him from it? He already knows. He’s waiting for you to bring it.

One step.  This week, talk to Him every single day. Not for an hour. Just one real sentence. Father, today I need help with... In the truck. In the shower. In the parking lot. The Father wants the conversation more than you do.