5700 Rudnick Ave. Woodland Hills, CA 91367 (818) 346-6968 Home > Resources > Prayer Resources > Prayer is a Relationship PRAYER RESOURCES   PRAYER IS A RELATIONSHIP Maxie Dunnam Prayer is relationship. It is being with God. It is meeting. It is a personal relationship in which you and God move from hello of politeness to an embrace of love. It is communion. All other dimensions of prayer must take place to this primary dimension.   Relationship is a personal matter. In prayer we are relation specifically to God who claims our total allegiance, calling us to love with all our heart, soul, and might: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4-5).   Archbishop Anthony Bloom talks about this in a provocative way. He says that a relationship becomes meaningful and real the moment you begin to single out a person from the crowd. Prayer becomes real when it is not longer a relationship in the third person but in the first and second persons, when God becomes more than the remote “The Almighty,” and becomes the singular and unique “Thou” or “You.” The psalmist had discovered this: “O God, you are my God.”   Anthony Bloom carries this analogy of name to the ultimate in personal relationship: We name a person what he or she means to us. This may be a nickname. He says David reached this point when he cried out to God, “O you, my joy!”   Psalm 91:1-2   You who live in the shelter of the Most High,   Who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,   Will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress;   My God, in whom I trust.”     Psalm 27:1:   The Lord is my light and my salvation;   Whom shall I fear?   The Lord is the stronghold of my life;   Of who shall I be afraid?   The point is that prayer is reaching its height when we name God out of our experience of God: “O God you are my joy!” “O God my rock!” “O wonderful Savior.”   And this naming of God determines how we experience God! Some can only name God in ways that lead to their experiencing him as enemy or absentee landlord. But as we come to know God in Jesus and in our relationship with God, we can experience the ever loving God as our most intimate friend.   This naming can transform and put depth into our praying. We can be honest to God. Prayer then becomes the sorting out of our feelings as we bring them to God who cares and understands. It is the clarifying of our wishes and our needs and getting perspective in light of God’s love and will.   Let’s be specific in our experience of this relationship today.   Kathryn Reasoner   Director of Discipleship