Some things are so obvious it takes me years to see them.

I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer all my life, but only recently when someone pointed out something about the prayer, something I’ve probably heard a million times before, did it really hit me and make a difference to my prayer life.

It’s all in the first-person plural. “Our Father… give us this day our daily bread… forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us… lead us not into temptation.” It’s as though Jesus was reminding the disciples and us that you really can’t pray for yourself by yourself without somehow praying for others. Or put it another way: When you pray for yourself, you’re also mystically involving everyone else who has needs. We’re all in this together.

So what should this mean to my prayer life—or our prayer life? (Not for nothing do we call our prayer ministry at Guideposts OurPrayer.) When I get stuck and too wrapped up in my own concerns, which I must tell you happens quite frequently, I remember or am reminded of someone else who needs help, someone who needs it in fact even more desperately than I do.

I heard myself recently say at a retreat that it’s a measure of my mental health as well as spiritual health: the more I’m praying for others, the better off I am. In fact, when I was working on my book 10 Prayers You Can’t Live Without, I found myself putting it this way: “When you’re not sure what to pray or how to pray, say a prayer for someone else.” All those people who need prayers, what a favor they’re doing for us, enhancing our lives as we do our best to reach out to help them. “I’ll keep you in my prayers,” is one of the loveliest things you can say to yourself and anyone.

“Our Father… give us this day our daily bread… forgive us our sins…” I’m sure it’s obvious to you, but it’s taken me decades to figure this out. Hey, give me another few decades and I might have another epiphany. For now, I’m working on this one.

Got a prayer that needs to be answered? Tell me what it is. I want to pray for you. For me. For all of us together.

The Snyder-family pew was second from the front. Twice a week my parents, younger brother and sister and I filed in there—once for Sunday service and once for the Wednesday-night prayer meeting. Pastor Reed kept a watchful eye on all of us kids. A Sunday-morning snicker or fidget would quickly be met with a raised eyebrow and a warning glance over the top of his thick black spectacles.

Wednesday nights were even worse. After a lengthy sermon and Bible study, the pastor paired us with prayer partners. Then he chose a partner for himself.

That was panic time for a 15-year-old boy. I was all too familiar with Sunday’s pastoral prayer, which easily hit the 15-minute mark and flew right past it.

The last thing I or any of us kids wanted was to be Pastor Reed’s prayer partner.

I had managed to avoid that experience, until one Wednesday when the pastor called, “Jim, come and be my prayer partner tonight.” Nabbed! My face flushed. My brother nudged me. I thought of my friends secretly sighing in relief that they had gotten through another week scot-free.

It’ll all be over in a few minutes, I told myself as I knelt beside Pastor Reed in the front pew, my mouth as dry as the previous Sunday’s sermon. “Go ahead, Jim,” he encouraged. “I’ll pray after you.”

I was familiar with prayer. I prayed often, and always before an English test. But this was different.

I coughed a few times, then began to speak. “God bless my mom, dad, brother and sister. Bless my relatives and my classmates.” I blessed the church, the town, the state of Florida and probably the whole United States, not wanting my pastor to think I had selfish prayers. Every word came faster until they all blended together and I slid into the “Amen” as if it were home plate.

I made it! I thought, unclenching my folded hands. Now it was his turn.

“Well, Jim,” the pastor said, and I had a sinking feeling this wasn’t his prayer. “That was a good start.” Then he explained what it meant to pray, how to pray. “Just like you would talk to me, that’s how you can talk to God.”

Fine, I thought. I’ll do that next time.

“Jim, why don’t you try again?” Pastor Reed said.

I couldn’t believe it!

“And remember,” he continued, “talk to God like you’d talk to a friend.” I took a deep breath. Like I’d talk to a friend. My prayer began the same way, but the words left my lips more slowly, and I was able to focus on what they meant. Halfway through I realized how easy it was to pray—and how good it felt.

Pastor Reed smiled. “Very nice, Jim,” he said.

My pastor never called on me to pray with him again. But I wouldn’t have minded. I had learned to talk to God like the friend that he is.

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Do you sit when you pray? Do you have a favorite chair? And why would one chair matter more than another, especially for prayer?

It seems like tricky business when we link something material, like a chair, to something spiritual, like prayer. After all, prayer is eminently portable. We take it with us wherever we go and a chair, well, a chair sits where it sits.

But I found myself thinking of chairs when I was visiting Mom and happened to be sitting in an old family chair, the feet so worn over the years that it leans back.

“Where did these chairs come from anyway?” I asked Mom.

“They were in your dad’s family. They go back to the 18th century. You can see how they’re worn down because they sat in the kitchen where the floor was brick and got dragged along the floor.”

I thought of how my grandfather told me they couldn’t drag chairs along the ground on Sundays because it was the Sabbath, and it would be like plowing.

“When do you think it was last caned?” I asked.

“A long time back,” she said. I checked the bottom of the seat. It has black tape on it that could have been there before World War II.

I sat it in it and considered how many family celebrations it had witnessed: birthdays, Sunday dinners, baptisms, Christmas, Easter. 

If a chair could talk, what would it say about my family? They laughed a lot and ate well and never sat down for a meal without saying grace first.

I thought of that old children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit, how the stuffed bunny gets more worn over the years and more loved until it becomes real through love. 

That would be this chair. Worthless really. Firewood. Can’t imagine anyone wanting to buy it at a tag sale. But it had been loved.

A chair, a physical object, can have a spiritual aura to it. I figured it would be my praying chair while I was home. The right place to sit and look for God.