What is prayer?

"What is prayer?" was the question Jaime asked. The timing couldn't have been better as prayer, what it is and what it isn't, has been much in my thoughts of late. You'd think after 25 years of being a professional Jesus follower I'd have the basics sorted, and what's more basic, or profound, than prayer.

My response to Jaime,

It is not as simple as talking with God.

It is being IN God's presence, like a comfortable silence between friends interspersed with words now and then, but not necessarily in complete sentences.

Thanks for asking about this.

I'm reading much on prayer and trying to let go of my old box I had put God in.

I think that's how I'd illustrate it when I next teach on it.
We often think of God in a Box which we open and close with "Dear Heavenly Father" and close with "In Jesus' Name." "Now get back in your box 'til I call you again."

Prayer can be a glance, a sense when walking, a comfortable silence, a tune whistled or hummed, a gesture, a posture, a sigh. Prayer can be artwork, weeding, hammering, or running. It can be a song whistled, strummed or sung.

To pray is not so much to speak as to be and to be with.

Just one title from which I've been gleaning.