Our readings this week are Romans 8.26–end and Matthew 13.31–33, 44–52.

I really like the depiction of prayer in this snippet from Paul's letter to the Romans—the idea of the Spirit interceding through us and for us.

It can be very easy to tie ourselves up in knots when it comes to prayer. How do I pray? When do I pray? For whom or for what do I pray? And what are the right words to use? Why is it that I can be praying for something and it doesn't seem to be happening?

But all of those questions, in a way, are rooted in this notion that prayer is about asking and getting—that it's a transactional thing where we come before and petition our God in the hope that they might listen to us and give us the thing that we're asking for, or that we might be pleasing enough to them, in a way.

Paul tells us of a different reality, a deeper reality to prayer. There is the picture here that our prayer isn't us going to God and talking and asking for something, but God at work in and through us. If we can accept that, then prayer becomes less of an active striving, and more relaxed - and our awareness of praying becomes that moment in which we open ourselves to experiencing the ongoing interaction of love that is God at work, or we could say simply is God.

The God we believe in is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—but also a unity, just one God who is above all, in all, through all, before all and after all. It is a defining characteristic that they exist in relationship with themself – as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the God whom we worship is community! They are love in action, and dynamic perpetual dance, being shared between the different persons of the Godhead. (It is that wonderful tension between single and plural that has led to me experimenting with the pronoun ‘They’ for God recently – not any sort of political agenda!)

So, when we pray, prayer is about opening ourselves to the ongoing relationship that is already happening between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It doesn’t need to be about trying to add in our own words to it, or trying to redirect it, or trying to steer it towards a particular outcome: it can be simply recognizing that we exist in every moment as those created by a God in conversation.

And the experience of the saints through the ages tells us that it's extraordinary what can happen if you relax into that experience.

I would encourage you to try it: to pray rather with a blank page, rather than with a shopping list. To just sit and be. To relax into practicing an awareness of the presence of God. Imagine that They are right there with you, having a conversation in the room. And let it be like that murmur in the background as you're falling asleep. Rest in it. Open yourself to it.

Maybe you might feel moved to join in with it, to throw in a few things that you are thinking about at the moment – that’s absolutely fine, you are invited to join this relationship – but you don’t have to be the dominant voice; let this be a time first for listening and being.

Now – full disclosure - the reality is that when most of us do that, we are going to hear and feel an overwhelming sense of absolutely nothing. But you'd be amazed that over time, if you keep returning to that nothing, how deep it turns out to be, and how compelling it is; that there is, in fact, an awesome presence that exists in the depth of it. Over time listening to and resting in that presence can shape who you are and how you respond to the world around you. Could it even be that it only feels like nothing, because there is nothing else? Love that is everywhere, that has no edges to make it more visible, can at times be hard to see.

So why not give it a go? See what happens if we start walking this journey. Let's head towards that place where we are aware of the Spirit interceding for us; let’s try to give telling a break, and start listening.