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Prayer is an infinitely large subject and yet so simple.

Sometimes prayer can seem like a duty, something you feel you should do. You should pray more, pray with more beautiful words, pray more for others than for your own needs. You should, you should, you should. But, if you think about it that way, prayer is easily associated with failures and feelings of not being able to measure up.

For me, prayer is something completely different, it's about a relationship. It's an ongoing conversation between two parties who want to get closer to each other.

God is always there, but we can and must approach Him.

How amazing isn't that? The God of the universe wants a loving, close relationship with us humans. He wants us to get to know Him.

He wants to talk to you and me and hear how we're doing.

Prayer is time together with God. Sometimes through words cried out to God in joy or despair. Sometimes it's a quiet whisper or a sigh. Sometimes it's about being still in silence, listening for what God wants to say.

Sometimes we think our entire relationship with God depends on promises we make to Him and our inability to keep them. So, it's easy to lose heart or give up. But I think it's the other way around. Our relationship with God depends on promises that He has made to us, promises that He has kept, can keep, and forever will keep.

Prayer is a relationship, and as with all close relationships, our relationship with God becomes deeper and stronger the more we give it time and make room for it in our everyday lives.

We don't need to go to a monastery or think it's about performing. We can instead, in all simplicity, let prayer, our conversation with God, become a natural conversation that in some sense is always going on and is with us.