By FERN RICHIE

To me, prayer takes many forms, but I would like to share the most liberating breakthrough I experienced as it relates to prayer. This breakthrough happened when I realized that meaningful prayer is simply maintaining a conscious awareness of God’s immanence in the world around us.

By maintaining this conscious awareness of God’s presence in and around us, we greatly improve our chances of being available to God in that moment. We experience the infinite in the very finite moment.

As we become aware and celebrate God’s presence, we resist the “results orientation” that dominates our culture. We enjoy a state of being in relationship with God in the moment.

This is best described as a process-oriented goal versus the results-oriented goal our culture celebrates; that is, the process of being completely available to God’s very real presence. This keeps us from viewing prayer as just another task to be completed during our busy day.

Being completely available to our loving Creator should be celebrated and enjoyed. Over time, God empowers us to expand our availability from only those certain conscious moments I described earlier to ever-increasing moments of full-conscious availability to God.

To me, this frames prayer as the process of maturing spiritually.

What are your thoughts about prayer? Do you pray a specific prayer that is meaningful to you? Is there a verse of scripture that inspires your prayer? Does your family have a prayer practice that you would like to share? Everyone is invited to contribute to the “How We Pray” column. Please forward submissions and questions about the column to Fern Richie, c/o West End UMC. Or you may call me at 292-7505 or e-mail.