31 Jan 2026
Taking It to Our Knees - What Prayer Is and Is not
LifeTalk
Reshaping Our Understanding of Prayer
Hi, I’m Craig Lounsbrough. Welcome to LifeTalk. Thanks for joining us today.
You know, I think that we would like prayer to be a real thing. Whether you believe in it or not, I believe that most of us would like it to be true. We all have those difficult and devastating points in life when we would love to have something that would connect us to something bigger than we are. Something to get us out of the mess that we can’t get ourselves out of. Regardless of what you happen to believe, I believe that most of us would like prayer to be true.
And so, out of that hope, maybe we need to take a minute and revisit prayer. Whether you tend to believe in it or not, maybe we need to ask what it really is. Maybe we need to consider abandoning all lesser ideals and see if we can embrace prayer as the potent and indispensable power that handily moves everything that would dare to step in its path. And if prayer is actually that powerful, how do we get ourselves there?
To achieve this, we might begin by asking what prayer is, and in doing that highlighting what it’s not. And so, what is this thing that we have been privileged to do?
How have we diminished prayer by adding our own contrivances to it, or attempting to tame it so that it walks in-step with our anemic agendas? In what ways have we gutted by losing it manmade traditions, or secularizing it to make it more palatable to the masses, or attempting to formularize it thinking that there’s some sort of code to break or keywords to use?
How have we cheapened it by seeing it as some sort of ready-made laundry list, or something demanded of us by people who don’t demand it of themselves, or how has prayer been cheapened by the cheap promises that so many have made of it? What is prayer, and what is it not?
Whatever we’ve done to prayer, I think that we need a basic reminder or reorientation. We need to untangle whatever we’ve done to prayer. We need to rid it of all of our contrivances. We need to quit trying to tame so that it walks in-step with our anemic agendas. We need to rid it of our manmade traditions. We’ve got to stop trying to secularize it to make it more palatable to the masses.
We’ve got to quit trying to formularize it thinking that there’s some sort of code to break or keywords to use. We’ve got to refuse to see it as some ready-made laundry list, or demand imposed on us by others, some a cheap promise made by self-appeasing men. We’ve got to stop that stuff and get back to what prayer actually is
Now, you will find a more detailed dialogue presented my book “Taking It to Our Knees – Rigorous Prayers for Life’s Greatest Challenges.” But for today, in order to set the stage for this renovation, I would have you consider these eleven points. If you apply these eleven truths, they can recalibrate and literally transform your prayer life, regardless of what you believe about prayer:
Prayer is courageously living out our faith in the real world. It is not some ascetic exercise carried out in some mystical nether world.
Prayer is a natural connection to a marvelous God, not an academic pursuit.
Prayer is the rawness of the soul connecting with the goodness of God, not an obligatory tip of the hat.
Prayer is discovering what we were built for, instead of questioning if we should have been built at all.
Prayer is the activity which before all other activities, movements, people’s and nations will bend if we just bend our knees. It is not some anemic exercise helplessly held within the four walls within which it was prayed.
Prayer is not a lifestyle that we learn. Rather, it is the life that we were born to live.
Prayer is not a formula that we concoct, but an intimacy that we develop.
Prayer is not the last resort. Rather, it is the first step that will never leave us facing a last resort.
Prayer is not the thing that we squeeze into our day, but the thing that squeezes everything that would kill us out of our day.
Pray
