Talk to God
Talking to God involves a very spiritual, personal, often private, relationship. With so many religions and popular opinions about relating to God, figuring out how you should talk to God may seem complicated. But it doesn’t have to be. How you choose to connect and talk to God will simply boil down to what seems right to you. No matter your spiritual preference or religion, learning how to communicate effectively with God can be achieved with the following tips.
Contents
Steps
Talk to God as You Believe
- Determine how you see God. You’ll need to determine who God is to you in order to confidently talk to God. Who is, and how do you define, God? Do you know God as a fatherly or motherly figure, a teacher, a distant -- or a close friend, sticking closer than a sister or brother? Or, is God an abstract spiritual guide? Is your connection to God rooted in a personal, spiritual relationship you have with God? Or, do you follow the form and order of your religion to understand who God is to you? Whichever is true for you will dictate how you view and talk to God. And, however you see God determines how you will approach God to talk to Him as ______ (as you see Him).
- Establish a relationship with a caring God. It’s easier to talk to someone when you persist to establish a speaking relationship with a person that really cares. So, your telling God your burdens and joys helps bond your relationship with God. Figuring out that God wants to hear from you and to share all your joys, pains and thoughts with you is the first step to establishing that relationship. And you can build on it by reading about how much God cares in spiritual literature or religious texts, such as the Bible, Quran or Torah.
- Talk to God as you would a close, loving but all powerful friend. Talking to God as a tremendous friend is different from just praying to God as a need or duty. As with a friend, you expect back-and-forth communication by noticing how God answers, helps or teaches you. While prayer may be more of a one-way transaction, talking implies a conversation.
- You can talk to God out loud or inside your mind, whichever feels most effective to you.
- It may be best to find a quiet or private space you can occupy in order to concentrate while you’re talking. If you can’t, it’s okay to talk silently to God while you’re standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, sitting in a waiting room, or while you’re at work or school, etc.
- Have a talk with God. Talk to God similarly as you would, if a physical person were standing in front of you. You can talk to God about your daily troubles, your thoughts at the moment, your hopes and dreams, and even tell Him (and tell yourself) the things for which you’re thankful. You can tell God about casual or hard topics just as you would with a concerned friend.
- Let’s say for example you were having an ongoing argument with a friend. You could say, “God, I’m not sure what else to say to Charlie. We’ve been arguing for almost two weeks now and we still can’t come to an agreement. I don’t want to think we can’t get through this, but I don’t know what more to do or say.”
- Ever been amazed by a crazy, beautiful day? Talk to God about His gifts to you. “Wow, God! It’s so beautiful outside. I’d love to spend the day reading in the park.”
- Maybe you have a difficult relationship with a family member: “I hate that my mom and I don’t get along. She just doesn’t understand me, and she refuses to listen when I try to tell her how I really feel. I pray that she would try to see things from my point of view sometimes. And, help me to to be patient, listen and understanding to her.”
- Watch for and pay attention to possible feedback. You may not get an audible response like you would, if a friend were physically standing in front of you. But you can receive a response from God in the written word of God or from the sermon of a minister. Anticipate it to also come in the form of an intuition, an inspiration, a scripture, a situation or an event that directly or indirectly relates to what you’ve been talking about to God.
- Tell God that you know that He has His own reasons for His seemingly hands-off response and His timeline -- and so trust Him in that. You may not find what you want when you want it, but He does everything for His reason.
- Try to keep following God's path in good faith in the loving concepts of God and expressing God's goodwill. But, realize that whatever happens may be a result of a "third person(s)" involved in their self-centered, personal actions/inaction, or their doing the opposite of some of your ideas and needs. God does not necessarily contravene or interfere with the behavior of disagreeable parties -- Why? They, having free will as you do, might not follow love, good morals, the purposes of God, nor stop their misconduct that can involve you. Events could, thus, depend regrettably on their dangerous/uncaring intersections with your hopeful and peaceful path. Even in dire events one can talk to God, in the darkest day or when you pass through the valley of death. You need not fear, but may cry out to Him while trusting God, come what may.
Talk to God Through Your Writing
- Write to God as a form of communication. Maybe you feel uncomfortable talking out loud to God, find it difficult to concentrate when talking to God in your mind, or maybe neither of the two work for you at all. If that’s the case, try writing to God. This form of communicating will still enable you to express your thoughts for a connection and create your side of a conversation with God.
- Purchase or find a blank writing notebook and pen. Choose something that will feel comfortable to write in every day. A spiral notebook or journal would be an ideal choice since it will easily lay flat on a desk. Select your preferred writing tool.
- You’ll want to write to God by hand instead of typing on a computer. Computers have endless distractions, and for some the act of typing requires more conscious effort than scribbling in a notebook.
- Find a quiet and private space to write. Even though you won’t be speaking aloud, it’s still best to find a quiet spot for maximum concentration.
- Write for a specific amount of time. Before you get started set a timer for a length of time that feels comfortable to write for. You may set it for five, ten or twenty minutes. Keep your pen or pencil moving until the timer goes off.
- Write fast and freely. Try not to be self-conscious about what you write. Don’t worry about grammar and punctuation, or about what you’re actually writing. In writing to God, you want your words to come from the heart. In order to do that you’ll need to relax enough that you can write freely about whatever comes to mind.
- Write to God as if you’re writing a letter to a friend, or as if you’re writing in a private journal. If you’re not sure what to write about, consider writing about a current concern that you can’t stop thinking about. Write about what’s happening in your day to day life. Write down any questions you want God to answer for you. Or write about your goals or what you’re thankful for. Use the examples below for inspiration.
- “Dear God, I have no idea what I’m doing in my life right now. I can’t seem to make good choices or meet the right people. I feel like I’m drowning in drama. When will this end? When will things change for me?”
- “I can’t even contain my excitement right now, God. Today I met a woman who works at my dream job. Our meeting was completely serendipitous. I mean what are the chances of meeting just the right person randomly on a busy street? If I didn’t accidentally bump her shoulder and if she didn’t happen to drop her purse, I never would have gotten a glimpse of her business card. You’ve truly answered my prayers.”
Talking to God through Prayer
- Set aside time to pray to God. Prayer can be considered a more formal way to talk to God because it is primarily rooted in religion. However, you can choose to pray in whatever way feels comfortable to you. While you can pray at any time and in any place, it helps to set aside specific times of the day to pray. Choose a time when you are unlikely to be disturbed and you'll be able to center yourself and pray effectively. Common times for prayer include: before meals or bed, after waking, during stressful times or periods of need, and during solo activities like exercising or a commute.
- Find a quiet room or space to pray. Ideally, praying to God should occur in a place where you'll be able to tune out distractions during the few minutes it takes to pray.
- If you can't find a quiet place to pray, don't worry. You can pray on busy city buses, in the middle of crowded restaurants, and anywhere you can center yourself. You can pray while you're driving down the highway, as long as you stay focused on the road while you pray.
- Prepare for prayer. As you get ready to pray, some people like to take a few minutes to prepare the space and the self for communicating with God. The way that you choose to prepare for prayer will largely be up to your own personal preferences and/or religious traditions.
- Some common practices might include: reading a few applicable verses of a religious text, lighting candles or incense, performing a cleansing ritual, taking communion, meditating quietly, chanting, or singing.
- Decide what you want to pray about. This can be done beforehand, if there is a pressing matter happening in your life. Or it can be determined as you pray.
- You could use prayer as a means to have a casual conversation with God about daily happenings or current events. Here’s an example, “God, today is my first day of class. I’m really nervous, but also excited. I pray that everything goes well today.”
- You could use prayer as a way to confess or get something off your chest, or you could pray for a request or a need. “God, I feel horrible that I gossiped about a coworker. I’m afraid she’s found out, and I don’t know what to do to fix it. Please forgive me. Also, please give me the strength to ask her for forgiveness.”
- Let’s say you’ve just interviewed for a job. You could say, “Thank you, God, for a great interview. Please let the interviewer see how perfect I am for this position, and decide to hire me.”
- Pray in a way that feels natural to you. There's no one right way to pray. Prayer should be unique to the individual believer who is praying. While praying in a church or worship center is often quite stylized and ritualized, when you're praying alone, you don't have to follow any particular rules, other than opening yourself up to God and speaking from the heart.
- Some people like to bow their heads in prayer and close their eyes, while other religions will practice full prostrations or kneeling. Whatever seems most respectful and effective for you and your personal relationship with God is fine. You can pray with your eyes open and your head high just as its fine to pray kneeling and silent.
- It's common to recite some traditional prayers out loud, but it's also very common to pray silently to yourself.
- Pray with others. It can be a powerful experience to pray with a group of like-minded individuals. This can be an excellent way to hear how others relate to God, and learn new traditions and rituals that you can integrate into your own prayer practice. If you don’t currently have a group to pray with, try to find one.
- You can find a group in a local worship center or church you attend. You can do a search online for people who share your beliefs to see if there are meetups happening in your area. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, consider starting your own prayer group.
- In some religions, prayer groups practice sending group prayers to friends and loved ones in need. Prayer lists are often created regularly to pray for the sick and needy members of a community.
Tips
- When talking to God make sure you do so in a way that feels most comfortable to you. Don’t try to emulate someone because you think they’re doing it right. Do so because you think it might work for you.
- When writing to God, make sure to use pen and paper. Although it is more labor intensive, it is less distracting.
- It’s ideal to find a quiet space to talk to God. But don’t worry if you can’t. Just try to find a way to make the moment sacred for you, despite distractions.
- Read the Bible. God's word is how God communicates with us and shows us how to live better lives. It is the one book that has gone through trials where people have doubtlessly tried to destroy it but yet to this day is the most popular book in the world. Call it a best seller.
Warnings
- Don’t let others bully you into talking to God a certain way. No one way is the only way to talk to God. Choose the method that feels most natural and soothing to you.
