What is prayer? A wish, a hope, purposeful thoughts, or a conversation? Prayer as a conversation means there is another engaged in the dialogue. Who is the other you converse with? Is it an idea, a standard, a disconnected deity, a person in power, or possibly a true God who responds and engages in the conversation with you? Faith and religion can be as simple as the Bible describes or as complicated as humans can make it, and we often complicate things extraordinarily.

Consider an ant holding a conversation with a blue whale as a wild example. The whale is beyond any ant’s imagination in size and power. It lives in an environment beyond anything an ant can experience. An ant entering a whale’s environment, though natural to the whale, is death to the ant. Neither can the whale live in the small, earth-bound environment of the ant. There is no way the two can coexist in the natural. These two creatures are incompatible due to their different natures. We are both whale and ant in this strange example.

That relates to humans and God only to a point. There is a third element that is within humans that can directly connect to God’s nature, and that is spirit. Spirit is that part of us that is made of the divine nature in that it is a forever piece of us that is bonded to flesh and blood. That means there is a piece of God’s environment tied to this physical nature. We are, to keep with the example, part whale and part ant. It is no wonder that the differences do not leap into harmony with each other within us.

Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God in both natures to connect with humanity, body and soul/spirit. Jesus is the perfect wedding between spirit and physical humanity. He is able to communicate through all barriers and confusions to create understanding for productive conversation. He is spirit made physical for the work of relationship. His life, death, and resurrection is convincing proof that God wants the conversation/ relationship. He has truly gone the “extra mile” by coming to us as only He can. Prayer is a living conversation with God who starts the conversation, carries the conversation, and responds to the conversation. Prayer is not words on the wind, but a dialogue, a two way conversation.