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.
The words “prayer is praise” might invoke images of revivals, speaking in the spirit, healing and miracles, charismatic teachers. For some, this provocation is welcome; for others, it is uncomfortable. Allow me to suggest that some discomfort in our prayer life might be good. I am not pointing to physical pain kind of discomfort, but rather the type of discomfort that comes with being stretched, going beyond our usual boundaries, and saying yes to transformation.
When our prayer is “all in,” and our mind, heart and body are caught up in spirit, then prayer as praise can provoke a welcome discomfort. All-in prayer points to our teleology, to our ultimate purpose of healing into the fullness of wholeness, of tasting the sweetness of living fully alive, of raising our vibrational resonance towards the delight of ecstasy.
This might come in the form of singing our hearts out, moving our dancing bodies into exhaustion, or sitting in silence so intently that we lose track of self-consciousness. Whatever the form, when prayer comes to us and we consent to go all in, then prayer as praise might be uncomfortable, even as it is transformational.
