Just talking to God

Recently reading the testimony of a young Christian man who converted from a very strict form of Islam, I came upon this passage,

"…one day, I was sitting on the steps of my house. I don't know why or how—
I broke all Islamic rules of praying and 'talked' with 'Allah' directly. I prayed in a whisper, ‘Allah please never leave me alone!' I don't know why I said that but right then I heard something I have not forgotten since. Someone, out of the blue, answered, 'I won't.' Shocked, I looked up and around—I didn't see anyone. I knew someone had answered me because I wasn't sleeping. I was all awake, thinking. Then I wondered what a Moslem is never suppose to think about at all—
I thought maybe 'Allah' had answered me."

For him, that was the beginning of his conversion to Christ…

"It was this thought that started the doubts in my mind about Islam."

The passages quoted are, by the way, in Part 4 of his testimony, which can be read in full starting here. The blog has several contributors. His blogger identity is Avenging Apostate, and the testimony is his.

Now, two things that he said stood out to me.

First, that in Islam one doesn't approach God directly in one's own words, but only through the ceremonial prayers that one says five times daily, accompanied by bodily movements. I am pretty sure that there are Muslims who love God and speak to Him in their own words; in fact, I know there are, because they have written these words down in poetic form. But for the ordinary rank and file Muslim, what he says is true. I know this for sure, because one of my close college friends, Shahid Yusuf from Pakistan (who incidentally taught me to chant the call to prayer in Arabic) explained this to me. He was surprised that anyone would feel worthy enough to speak to Alláh directly, just as our Christian brother testifies.

Second (and this is less important from my point of view), that after praying his direct prayer to Alláh, he audibly heard a voice give a response, yet there was no one nearby. I do not doubt this was a miracle, but it reminds me of the testimony of Augustine of Hippo. With him, it was the voice of a child who chanted "Take up and read!" from an unseen location, probably on the other side of a garden wall, when Augustine had cast his eyes upon a copy of the letters of apostle Paul which he had acquired but not yet read. In this case too, I would say, it was a miracle, even though we might be in a better position to explain it away as coincidence misinterpreted by an agitated state of mind. Of course, something like this could be said of our new brother's hearing the words "I won't!" without seeing the speaker.

Back to the first idea, that one can speak to God directly, in one's own words. This really stood out to me for several reasons. Let me start with my personal history.

As a child, I accompanied my parents to church, Sunday school and related events, even being an altar boy, until I was in my ninth year of life. After that, the family just stopped going to church. Before that happened, however, I had memorised all the customary prayers and pious actions (bowing, making the sign of the cross, etc.), and even after we stopped going to church, I still continued "playing church" with my little brother and our friends.

Every night, before I went to sleep, I prayed my prayers, either kneeling against the bed, or lying in bed on my back and looking up at the ceiling above me. My parents never prayed with me. I just knew what to do. The other thing that I began to notice, though, as I was growing up, was that my mother never said the church prayers at all, but little by little I began to notice her staying up all night, and hearing her just talk to God. Usually, she did not do this out loud, but very rarely she did, and that is how I figured out that it was okay to pray this way. I never asked her about it; I just started doing it too, talking to God. I can't remember when I began, but it was certainly by the time I was in high school.

Years later, after I had finished college, moved away to Canada, and was married, my mother wrote me a few letters that I saved, because they contained her testimonies. In her letters she wrote,
"I just stay awake in the night, and I talk and talk to God, and I know that He will forgive me for all the bad things I have done, even though I deserve to be punished for them." I wrote a little bit more about my mother and her testimony in my post Sorting out the past, and also have quoted longer passages of her testimony.

The idea of just talking to God, though, is what grabbed me. After becoming an adult, practicing Orthodox Christian, learning all the prayers by heart, and so on, I still primarily pray by just talking to God (without, of course, rejecting the memorised prayers).

In the book Beginning to Pray, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom explains that prayer starts out using the written prayers but it needn't stop there. We can just talk to God, because as we get closer to Him, He lets us know that this is good, talking to Him, our Father, in our own words.

Malli talking to God in her own words, from the film Ushpizin.

My final thought on prayer being this ‘just talking to God’ is:
It seems to me that one becomes more able to and more desirous of talking to God in this way, the more one makes the holy scriptures a daily and constant preoccupation. In other words, as we read the bible more and more, we are led to put its teachings into practice more and more, and we are gradually changed into people who can approach God more and more on intimate terms. At any rate, this has been my experience.

The testimony of the brother that got me started on these thoughts, well, I recommend that you read it. Of all the testimonies by former Muslims that I have read, this is the best written and easiest to relate to. I've also linked to his blog in my sidebar in the Mission to Islam category. May our good and loving God continue to protect him and raise him up as a good witness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To God be the glory.