We may think of prayer as a conversation with God: He speaks to us and we speak back to Him.  Prayer as conversation has helped many people, including me.  However, the problem with understanding prayer as conversation is that prayer is so much more than communication.  Reducing prayer to conversation makes it simply a mental activity of words and thoughts rather than a transformative encounter.

I think we should rather view prayer as communion with God. Communion includes conversation, but it extends far beyond it. Communion involves closeness, connection, and a depth of intimacy that mere dialogue cannot capture. Paul reminds us that we are in Christ, just as Christ is in us. And as we indwell Jesus and he indwells us, we share in his communion with the Father by the Spirit. Only within the intimacy of this shared communal life can we enjoy true encounters with Abba as dearly loved children..

Our union with Christ is not only a future hope, but also a present reality. Even though our experience of this union may be lacking and intermittent, the union itself is real here and now. And the communion we enter into through this union possesses the unique power to transform us from within.

Because prayer is communion, we do not need to be talking to God every moment to be truly praying. We can simply be with God. Within communion, prayer remains a relationship of dialogue, but more fundamentally, it is a personal encounter. And since God is love, we can only encounter Him within the communion of love that He is as love and for the sake of love.