Did you know that you can color your prayers?

I had never thought of doing this before. But, this week I listened on the edge of my seat as a fellow  Jesus-follower shared her story of how she’s learned to color her prayers and dance her prayers and draw her prayers and paint her prayers.

As a child of the Creator God, who has been crafted in His image, it’s just in me to want to be creative, too. God is always seeking relationship with the people that He’s made, and since prayer is simply talking to Him and listening to Him, it makes sense that there is more than one way to communicate with Him.

Yes, there’s the closing your eyes and bowing your head and folding your hands kind of praying. And the walking along the road and just talking to God kind of praying. And the driving down the street and shooting up quick arrow prayers kind of praying. Or the bending your knees beside your bed kind of praying. But, something in me leapt when I heard about the artistic kind of praying.

So, I went home and told Hopey about it and she and I have been coloring prayers ever since.

When you’re coloring your prayer, you have to slow down. Everything in you will yell at the top of its lungs that you really should be busy producing and doing important things. But, that’s how it always is with prayer, anyways. It often feels like a useless waste of time. But if you really believe prayer is the means to relationship with Your Maker, then you just make time.

Time to quiet your heart and see what comes up there on the surface. So, you might sit down with your little girl’s colors and smooth out the edge of the page before you begin. And then thank God for being with you in your tattered life and explain to Him that you feel a bit frayed at the edge. And then you might pick up the blue and think about that one person that you love the most and then begin thanking God for them. And you might ask Him to help them with specific things.

Then you might reach for the green and realize that you really want to grow in a certain area, so you’ll scribble this way and that and talk to God all the while. About the fears that hold you back that you need Him to calm and the anxiety that keeps resurfacing, and you’ll ask Him for peace.

And then you might fill in the sky and realize there’s something that’s been bugging you and you’ll spill it out and find yourself leaning over on your pillow, weeping. And He’ll bless you for coming to Him, with your weary, messy self by giving you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

Then you might sit up and find the yellow and begin praising and worshiping God as you trace the dark lines. You might thank Him for His Spirit and for the way He makes your life more vibrantly alive. How He saturates the moments of your ordinary day with the deep undertones of His Presence.  And how the brightness of His glory seeps into your mundane.

The way that we thrive in this life is by abiding in Christ. And how do we abide? We pray.

Sometimes that looks like bowing your head and closing your eyes. And sometimes it’s just slowing down and coloring as you talk to your Maker. Or dancing. Or painting. Or drawing.  Or singing.

God loves to hear your voice.

Pray continually. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth. (Psalm 145:18)