A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening.
Sören Kierkegaard
Our relationship with silence is complicated. In one setting it can be refreshing, while in another it brings an awkwardness that can make our skin crawl. Have you ever noticed the direct correlation between the depth of the relationship you have with someone and your tolerance for silence when you are with said person? Stated another way, we tend to experience more awkward silence with people we don’t know well but enjoy normal silence with people we do.
When you know someone deeply through spent time and shared activity, there comes a point when you can be with them without needing to fill the entire time with words. This reality of human nature does not apply only to our earthly relationships.
Jesus’ chief desire was for our intimacy and oneness with the Father. It’s what He prayed for leading up to His death (John 17:12) and presumably what He continues to intercede for us (Romans 8:34). If we search the Scriptures to see what Jesus taught about prayer and how He Himself prayed, we can see that intimacy with God produces a prayer life filled not only with praise, thanksgiving, and requests but also solitude, listening and silence.
What He Taught
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. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him.
Matthew 6:7-8 ESV
Since 63 BC, Rome had occupied the Holy Land of the Jews. These non-Jews, also known as Gentiles, had their own pagan religious practices. Prayers to roman gods were not of personal expression but were formulaic recitations. Their purpose was to alert the god to their needs and convince them of action. How effective their prayer was depended on one’s ability to orate the prayer with power and eloquence.
Jesus is not teaching that repetition or persistence in prayer is wrong. Elsewhere He commended this attribute of prayer (Luke 18:7). So why are we not to be like them? To answer this, Jesus reminds us of the Father’s character (Matt 6:8b). The pagan prays to a pagan god who is oblivious to his needs. A god who requires an especially efficacious prayer to awaken or be convinced to oblige his human servant. In contrast, the adopted son and daughter of God pray to a loving Father who knows their needs and seeks to bless them (read Luke 11:1-13). To pray like a pagan is to dishonor the character of the Father.
What He Did
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
Mark 1:35 ESV
The Gospels begin recording Jesus’ practice of prayer from the very beginning of His ministry (Mark 1:35). His prayer life was not simply a morning quiet time. When He felt the human need for sleep, He prayed (Mark 1:35). When He felt the human need to do one more good thing, He stopped and prayed (Luke 5:16). When He felt the human need to relax, He went up onto the mountain and prayed (Matt 14:23), and not for a little while.
After Jesus feeds the crowd of 5000, He sends His disciples off and goes up on the mountain and prays from early evening into presumably the 3rd watch of the night, that is 12 am – 3 am (Matt 14:23, Mark 6:46). In Luke 6:12, it says Jesus went out to the mountain to pray and “all night” He continued in prayer. We see in the Gospels that the Son of God was in constant communion with His Father from early morning to late in the evening for this was His identity and it allowed Him to fulfill the purpose for which He came (John 5:19).
What We Can Gather
If Jesus taught us to avoid using many words yet spent hours in prayer with His Father, what can we presume He filled a lot of that time with? Silence and listening. Jesus walked this earth listening to God, perfectly attuned to what the Father taught Him and doing what the Father wanted Him to do (John 8:28-29). Listening for God to speak and testing what we hear to Scripture would not only do us good but would be done in imitation of Christ.
Scripture teaches us that God’s will for our prayers is that our prayers would be marked by thanksgiving for what God has done (Col 4:2) and persistence for what we want to see God do (Luke 18:7). We pray publicly with others (Matt 18:20) and privately in secret (Matt 6:6). He gives us the high call to pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17) with both words and silence (Ps 46:10).
In Other Words
God is a good, present, and eager-to-provide Father who knows our needs (Luke 11:1-13). Our prayers should be persistent, but we should be careful to avoid thinking He requires eloquence, competence or power to convince Him to act. Knowing God, we can feel safe to communicate our desires and then quietly commune with Him.
In the end, intimacy with God is the goal, hearing from God is only a fruit. We should seek to grow in what Dallas Willard called a conversational relationship with God. A relationship that involves abiding in His word day by day, moment by moment. Gaining intimacy with Him through time and shared experience as one does with a spouse or dear friend. It is when we reach this deep level of intimacy that prayer becomes not a formula of praise, request, confess, and ask but one of fluid discussion, conversation, and listening.
