The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on August 14, 2024 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
When we say that prayer is faithful, the more common understanding of this might be that we should be faithful to our prayer. However, consider the converse—that prayer is faithful to us, too.
Traditional notions of faith tend to treat it more like a noun than a verb: faith is something you “have,” or a set of creeds and beliefs that you assent to and sign off on, like a safe deposit box. But a wisdom approach to faith places it within the dynamism of the Life of the Spirit in prayer. Faith as a verb invites us into a living stream of prayer, rather than a stagnant pool.
If faith is an active, ongoing, dynamic reality, then prayer is more likely to “work on us,” in the transformative, wisdom way of working. The very rhythm of prayer, and the patterns it prompts in our lives, become the living tradition that we commit to, over and over again, in every moment of every hour of every day—which is quite distinct from a one-time or occasional assent to a set of beliefs codified in words.
If we allow faith to “work on us” in our prayer, then the steady rhythms and ongoing stability of our practice begin to shape the ways that we show up in the world. This ongoing formation produces postures in our everyday life that are steady and dependable: in other words, faithful. Our prayers prompt us to trust in something more, to continuing on, even in the face of uncertainty, and to believe that good is always bigger and stronger than evil.
In this way, through the development of patterns and postures that show up in our everyday lives and encounters with others, prayer becomes a trustworthy, dependable partner in the work of transformation. Indeed, as we are faithful to our prayer, our prayer is faithful to transforming our lives!
