Prayer Unfiltered: Honest Questions about Talking with God

Prayer can feel simple until you try to do it out loud, in a group, or from a place of disappointment. In this episode, we begin an honest conversation about prayer—what it is, what it isn’t, and some of the ways we may misunderstand it. Prayer is a relationship. Not a script. Not a performance. Not a way to get God to do what we want. We’re not claiming to have all the answers, but we believe exploring the ideas and questions about prayer together is worth it. 

As we start this series, we want to hear from you. What questions, doubts, or experiences do you have about prayer? Send them our way—we’d love to include them in future episodes. Contact us at thefathersbusiness.com or find us on social media.

Transcript

Welcome And Podcast Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hey friends, I'm Kimberly. And I'm Elizabeth, and this is the Father's Business Podcast, born out of Sylvia Gunter's heart for people to know who God is and who they are in him.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

So wherever you're listening from today, we pray that you will sense his nearness and know that you are his beloved sons and daughters. We're really glad you're here with us today.

Why Start A Prayer Series

Prayer Runs Through The Bible

Prayer As Relationship Not Formula

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Well, welcome everybody to the Father's Business Podcast. We're so glad you joined us today. Kimberly and I have been having some conversations about our view of God and how we understand him and his providence and his provision. And today we're going to start a new series about prayer. That's a pretty big topic, Kimberly. The Bible has a lot to say about prayer. I think there's over 500 scriptures in the Bible that talk either about telling us to pray or examples of people praying or encouraging us with promises of if we pray, then this is what will happen. So there's a lot that we can talk about when it comes to prayer. And as I was thinking this morning, I don't think I realize how much prayer runs all the way through the Bible. Because if you think about it, God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden, that was prayer. It was communing and spending time with God. And you watch it go all the way through the Old Testament. And so many different times he told his people to pray and then he moved. And then you watch it through the New Testament and Jesus teaching us how to pray. And it goes all the way to Revelation where it says that the elders are around the throne praying 24-7. So even when we leave this environment and join God around the throne, we're still gonna be praying, right? So it's it's a definite part of our experience. But I also think there's a lot of things we can get wrong or misunderstand about prayer. So, Kimberly, for you, what's one thing do you think we sometimes misunderstand or get wrong about prayer?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

You know, I think at a base level, oftentimes when we think about prayer, we think of it as just talking to God. Even when we're in church, sometimes someone stands up to pray and they say, Let's pray. And it's someone else talking to God on our behalf. And sometimes we're just sitting there listening. Sometimes we're sitting there tuning out and thinking about what we have to fix for lunch if we're at church on a Sunday morning. So I I do think that oftentimes prayer is is misconceived as just an idea that we are talking to God or even at God. That's another aspect of that. Like, let me talk at you, God, like you just need to listen to what I have to say right now. Or sometimes we're just talking to him and we're telling him all of our needs, our wants, our desires, our hopes, our fears. I mean, it can be a lot of things. I'm not saying talking to God is bad. I'm just saying I think prayer is more than just talking to God, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and going back to the example of Adam and Eve in the garden, I don't think God showed up and walked with them in the cool of the day just to listen to them. I think God had things to say. And I think maybe even, you know, in my imagination, sometimes they just walked together and didn't have to say anything. They just enjoyed each other's presence. So yeah, I think that's one of the things we're going to kind of dig down into in this series is all the different types of prayer and just kind of what is prayer. It's far more about a relationship than it is a formula.

Pet Peeves And Performance Prayers

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, and if you think about the Lord's Prayer, which is our model that we have in Matthew, where Jesus taught us, pray as I have taught you to pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the glory forever and ever. Amen. We could spend a whole podcast breaking that down. I I think we did actually. We did. We recorded a podcast as an audio version a couple of years ago. I don't have the date in front of me, where we broke down that prayer, and you can see all the elements of the bigness of what prayer is in that model that Jesus gives us to use the language that we use around here. Prayer is really about getting us into alignment with God's heart. It's not about getting our way. It's not about saying, God, this is what I want, do it. It's not talking to him or at him. It's about coming into alignment with God through prayer, through conversation, through abiding with him. So, Elizabeth, I think when we start to realize how big prayer is and how important it is, because it is a conversation, it is a relationship. I wouldn't say that you're one of my dearest friends if I didn't spend time regularly with you. If I didn't spend time talking with you, not at you or to you. That's not a relationship necessarily. So let's just have a little honest conversation for just a minute. When you hear people talk about prayer or even practice prayer, what are some of your pet peeves? Knowing how big prayer is, what are some of your pet peeves when it comes to people talk about it or practice it?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

This is where we could get in some trouble because just like all of us have our own ways of communicating, we all have our own ways of praying. And so I don't want this to come off as being snarky or sarcastic, but probably it's going to. You can tell a lot about a person, I believe, by listening to them pray. And probably the thing I don't like the most is if I'm in a group and we're praying, you know, hey, let's, you know, let's pray about this, whatever. And we all know the scenario that we're praying about. Like, say we have a friend who is sick and has gotten a diagnosis and they goes, can we just pray for a minute? Sure. Someone starts off praying. And it's almost like a news reporter on the sidelines of the road. And God, we're here with our friend Stacy. She's been given a diagnosis of cancer, and like they go through this very detailed, and it's like, he knows that. Like, why don't we like jump over the fact that he's been with us while we've had this whole conversation and jump into God, our friend Stacy's scared, and we're scared for her. And so we need your peace to come and get the focus off of the circumstance that we're in and more towards God, this is how I feel in it. And can you come and be this for me and declare who God is for that person and those types of things? But I have to stop myself because some I'm just honest confessions here. Sometimes I'm in a group. And when someone starts it off, I just see them with you know their own little microphone, you know, reporting from down here in Birmingham, Alabama. God, in case you don't know, because you're so busy somewhere else and you're not familiar with what's going on here, I need to fill in this level of detail for you. And now anyone who prays with me, I don't want you to feel self-conscious about doing that. But it to me, it reflects a heart that feels like God's not paying attention. And that makes me sad, quite honestly, is how I feel when I hear it. Versus I have friends and I've learned this from them, and I hope this is more of my relationship with God, is whenever, like, okay, let's pray about that, they go and father, and they just start talking as if this is a continuation of a conversation they've already been having. Because that is the beauty, is God is always present. He is always just a comment away. And so I've got several pet peeves. We could have a lot of fun with this if we wanted to, but did does anything spring to mind, Kimberly, that that kind of sets you off?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah, and I'll speak to something you just said too, because I totally get that. I I think the appropriate place where we say our friend Stacey has been diagnosed with cancer is when we are doing a corporate prayer. There was a church that I was going to where they started putting the prayer requests that people had asked the church to pray for on a back page in the bulletin. And so the name was there and the request was there. They would send out emails with the prayer requests, people. These are requests that people say, Would you as a church pray for me? So they've just asked it to be public. They would send out an email, but on Sundays they started realizing we want to be praying corporately for these people that have asked us as a church to pray. So we're going to put their names in the back of the bulletin so that while we're praying, we don't have to say, so-and-so has this, so-and-so has this, so-and-so has this. As the pastor or the elder or the person gets up to pray, they just pray for the names. And they sometimes say, we know that so-and-so is headed into surgery this week and they're probably scared. That is an appropriate time sometimes to say those things because it is a larger congregation gathering together who may not all know. Sure. I will say sometimes when they when they say the name, if I'm truly praying, I sometimes will turn to the back and go, God be with them in this in this space, you know, because I may not know what's going on. So I think that's an appropriate place. But like, like when we're sitting at the dinner table together as a family and we pray for someone and we have to go, you know, they were they were in Birmingham last week and and this happened and that happened. I'm like, God knows, like he's with us. And so we don't want it to be a a performance prayer. So I I do think there's appropriate times for that. I've been in those scenarios where it's like, yeah, that's not needed in this scenario right now.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

All of us got it, including God.

How We Learn To Pray

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah. And to piggyback off of that, I think one of my pet peeves, and again, don't don't throw darts at the screen or anything. Um, one of the things that I think drives me crazy is when someone is praying and they continue to say, Father God, Father God, holy God, Jesus God, and they say his name over and over. Like it'd be like me saying, Well, Elizabeth, you know, I told you this the other day, Elizabeth, and so this was happening, and Elizabeth, oh my goodness, I was really scared, Elizabeth. And then I got really excited. Elizabeth, and do you know, Elizabeth, do you know what happened? Like that's not a normal way that we talk to our friends. And so sometimes when I hear that, it makes me think, like, again, he's right here. I mean, I get it. He is a holy God, he is a big God, and there's a reverence there, and yet he is communing with you in this conversation. So you don't have to say his name a thousand times over and over.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Some of us are taught to pray that. I mean, some of that's just yeah, because you learn prayer by who you listen to praying. That's a good point. It is, it is the discipleship part of this. Even when the disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray, he didn't give them a five-point seminar on, all right, now let's make sure that every prayer includes acknowledgement of who God is. And he just prayed in front of them. And it's not recorded in scripture. Maybe he went on to talk more with them about it afterwards, but it's like he prayed and then he was done. So there wasn't a you know eight-hour-long seminar on how to pray. They learned to pray by hearing Jesus pray. I think so many of us do that. We've all had uh parents, we've had family, we've had pastors who are praying from the front, we've had prayer groups we've been a part of, and that that is why I said everyone's got their own language, and also we we learn from what we're around. But yeah, I I agree with you that for some people that is a comforting repetition, and for others, it it gets me distracted. So isn't it great that God loves all of us?

Fear, Disappointment, And Honest Prayer

SPEAKER_01 10:38

It is, and I think it's interesting that in you're talking about what Jesus Jesus taught them to pray by his life and by being with him, but he also gave them that teaching of the Lord's prayer. In that same passage in Matthew, we see the verse that says, Do not heap up empty phrases. Your father knows what you need. And so I think that's also part of his teaching. And I'm not saying that what the pet peeves we have are empty phrases. Um that it just led me to think about that verse in particular, to think about when we're praying. It's not just a mindless chit-chat, it's not just a mindless chatter. Here's a good thought. How do we develop our own personal way of praying and talking to our father? Like I have my rhythm of speaking. If you listen to this podcast long enough, you can see Kimberly's rhythm, you can see Elizabeth's rhythm. Right. We know the rhythms of who we are. And our father created us that way. So I want to go to him. I mean, so much of what we talk about here is knowing who God is and who he's created us to be in him. I have my own identity of Kimberly, his daughter, and you as Elizabeth, his daughter. And whoever's listening, you're his son or you're his daughter. And so how can I just go to him with all of myself? And he knows, he knows me and just talk with him and be with him. And I do think that it's important to learn and take away the things that people before us have taught us. You know, I was with a friend this weekend who we grew up together in the same church. I don't get to see her often. She's about five years older than me, but we were reflecting back on our church we grew up in and the things that they taught us and really kind of appreciating the people weren't perfect and we may not have known all of their issues at the time or what they were struggling with. Now it may be more clear with their life story, but they invested in us with what they had. And I think that's important too. Like we're not judging the way you pray, or I mean, we're just kind of having an honest conversation here and making it fun too. But I do think there's an element of like, if you grew up in church or if you're in church now or in a community now, a small group community, if you're connected biblically with a group of people, you are learning through that community. And that's okay. Like that's a good thing. It's a good thing to learn that. But I think I would say let's also move beyond that and understand our own. We don't just have a personal relationship with God, we also have a communal relationship with God, with the body of Christ. And both of those things should affect the way we pray and how we pray and how we approach God.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah, and I think sadly, a lot of us we don't pray with others because we don't think we know how to do it right. Or even some of us in our own personal lives, you know, maybe we're not praying as often as we should or could. We are not having as deep of a connection with God as we could be because we're afraid we're gonna we're doing it wrong. There's a lot of questions I think that are gonna come up as we start this podcast of, well, I prayed and I didn't see God do anything. So did I do it wrong? Does he just not answer my prayer? Like there's all these questions kind of floating around this idea of prayer, which is what we want to invite people to send us your questions because we want to have honest dialogue about this deep, in some ways simple, because we come to God as a child, you know, with childlike faith, and you can start a conversation with him at any time and any place. And that's one of things I love about prayer is you don't have to be in a particular place to do it. But at the same time, it is a profound mystery that we don't fully understand. And I I'm looking forward to us being able to get into the depths of this and really figure out what what's on God's heart about prayer.

Send Questions And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 14:00

So that's really what we want to have conversations through this podcast through the next few weeks that help you specifically with the questions you have. So if you have questions, like Elizabeth said, send them to us. You can go on our website and there's a form there where you can send us stuff. At the end of this episode, we will connect a survey where you can click on and ask questions and get them to us. You can go on our social media at the Father's Biz on Instagram or The Father's Business on Facebook and send us the questions you have because we want this to touch real questions people have. We've been asking people already, but we want to know, like you, as you're listening to us, what questions do you have? Because we we know a lot of people have questions about prayer. I'll I'll be the first to say I'm one of those you just mentioned, Elizabeth. Like I spent several years really struggling to talk to God, not just talk to him, like I would worship that worship is an aspect of prayer. The Lord's prayer starts with our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That's a worship aspect of magnifying how great he is. And I would talk to God honestly, but I wasn't wanting to bring my request to him because I was disappointed and how he had answered a request to heal my dad, if we're honest, you know? And I spent years sitting in that space of I'm not gonna talk to him about that. So so we can bring our wounds and our fears and our doubts to the table in the conversation, of course. And we are guarded because what would I do with that if he disappoints me again? Right. So there's lots of questions that you haven't, and we don't have the answers. We say that all the time. We do not have all the answers, but we think it's worth having an honest conversation and wrestling through it with you.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, and you know, in my story, I mean, say same as you, there's feels like there's things I thought I heard God say to me in prayer that the way I interpreted them did not come true. So therefore, in some ways it feels like a promise was broken and having to deal through that. But also, you know, there's the other side of things of feeling inadequate. I mean, growing up with Sylvia Gunter as your mom, who's writing prayer portions and other things while you're in high school, she never made me feel this way. But so many people around me were like, oh my gosh, what is it like to have Sylvia Gunter as a mother? And I knew she was leading conferences and speaking to groups and praying for women in our living room and all those types of things. And so there was a season, probably the awkward teenage years, middle school years, whatever, where I didn't want to pray with her because I felt inadequate. I felt like, well, I don't know how to say all the right words and and do all the things. And there's there's stories we can tell about her feeling rejected because I didn't want to pray with her, but her not understanding what I'm feeling is fear that I'm not gonna do it right. But of course, my mom loves me and she's gonna meet me. Whatever I pray, she's gonna think is great because God feels the same way. He just wants our open, honest hearts. So we want this to be a safe place. I know we joke around about our pet poos about prayer. We will not judge you for your questions, but just to be a safe place to just be like, well, I don't pray because I don't know how. And let's let's talk about that and some of the creative ways. Prayer is not always sitting in a circle of people with your eyes closed. Like a lot of times, prayer happens driving down the road or eyes open on a walk, writing in your journal. There's a thousand different ways to pray. So we're looking forward to joining in this conversation. We've gotten a few questions from people about prayer, and we'll definitely be answering those, but would love to hear more of your questions about a particular verse or idea when it comes to prayer.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

So let us know your questions, as Elizabeth said, that you have about prayer. Give us the doubts and the concerns and the fears and the what-ifs. Give us your insights that you have about prayer too. We would love to hear from you, and we look forward to talking more about prayer and diving into what it is and encouraging you as well as ourselves into a deeper and richer prayer life. So we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

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