On November 5th, 1987, I flew from Melbourne to Manchester via Bangkok, Bahrain, and London. It was just before the days of long-haul jets, so we stopped in Bahrain in the middle of the night to refuel. It was a good time to have a leg stretch. Every doorway seemed to have a soldier holding a machine gun, but the terminal was otherwise hospitable. I found a bookstore and wandered around. In one corner was a religious section and I stopped to browse. The top shelf held Korans and Bibles. Yes, they were side by side! The next shelf seemed to have three kinds of books. There was one called Introducing Westerners to Islam. Another was some kind of overview of Pentecostal Christianity, but it was the third that caught my eye - a modern translation of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas À Kempis.

I had heard about this book, known as the second most widely read Christian book after the Bible, but it was not part of my culture. This seemed a good time to acquire a copy, so I purchased it, and in due course settled back in my seat for the rest of the flight to London. The book stood me up! I couldn 't sleep, and I finished my first reading as we landed at Heathrow Airport. This was my introduction to conversational prayer and to listening to the voice of God. This style of prayer has since grown to be the focal point of my devotional life, and the source of strength for every activity in life.

A second major impact on my walk with our Lord occurred on March 10th 1999. At dinner, after working all day at a conference, I had an anaphylactic reaction. Our conference dinner was at a winery and it appears that we had just done a tour of the cellars. I have had mild asthma for many years and generally am able to avoid yeast-containing foods including beer and wine, but it is possible that on this occasion I may have inhaled some form of yeast or other allergen.

I stopped breathing for eight minutes, but my life was saved by my friend and colleague, who got me into his car and rushed me to a nearby hospital. Although this was a relatively rural private hospital, there happened to be trained medical staff at hand, who were able to administer the necessary treatments quickly and effectively. I was then transferred by helicopter to a major hospital and spent the next 48 hours in Intensive Care. My family were distraught because I had a two-minute memory for nearly three days. They were advised that I might never recover my full mental faculties.

While memory and intellect did return, there were behaviour problems, and I was advised by the Professor of Neurology that brain damage to the front of the brain needed to be regarded as damage to the "judgement organ" and had to be assessed by someone other than the person with the damage. My brain was damaged! This was devastating to me, as I am person used to living "by my wits". I had no alternative but to put myself in the hands of our Lord, and ask him to add his quality of healing to the medical treatment I had already received. Just two days later, in a way that I still don't understand, and in what can only be regarded as a vision, I saw in the deep velvet darkness two hands each with a dark mark at the wrist come out of the right upper quadrant, reaching down to touch my naked brain. Beneath the darkness was a rich sapphire blue. I did not understand the significance of this colour until a week later; I read in the Bible that when the elders saw the God of Israel, under his feet was a pavement of sapphire (Exodus 24: 10).

From then on, I progressively regained emotional and neurological health. Just six weeks later, the Professor of Neuropsychology remarked in his assessment letter on my remarkable and unexpected total recovery.

So I continue to praise God and know the reality of his touch, his care, and his love. This whole episode has been a blessing to me and to my family in quality of faith. For me, it has also energised a new phase of contemplation.

I had attended Sunday School and Bible Class as a child and teenager in Auckland, New Zealand, and then made my commitment to Christ in mid teenage years. Adult life continued with study, service and membership of local churches in New Zealand, USA, Scotland, England, and Australia, but these two episodes over 10 years apart have had a profound influence on me, on my relationship with God, and on my prayer life. Before my illness, I had begun to write a series of conversational prayers each stimulated by a real event in daily life. These have grown, matured, and taken a new form since March 1999. One set from the series has been published - BUSINESS PRAISE, Acorn Press, Melbourne, November 2000. Others are in preparation and under review. The series is a collection or anthology of prayer-poems without other comment.

This present book is about conversational prayer and is my effort to share with you the reader the experience of intimacy with our Lord. It must not be, and has not been, a unique gift. I have set out, reaching deep into the scriptures, to discuss, to teach, but most importantly, to demonstrate by example, my practice of conversational prayer. I believe that God by his Spirit guides our thoughts, but at the same time permits us to express these deep ideas and encouragement in our own personalities. Now it is perfectly natural to ask, "Surely this style of writing that you have developed is merely a dialogue in your mind?" I think the answer to that must in part be yes, but the real dialogue is between mind and spirit, and between spirit and Spirit. I believe, and it is now my experience, that God in Jesus has given us his Spirit to live with us and within us. This is not a passive residence, but one of active encouragement, guidance and conversation throughout our daily life - and our sleep. As we come before God in worship, the Spirit shapes our thoughts giving us words, phrases, and agendas that come from God himself. The discipline of conversational prayer is to listen to this inner voice to our spirit, and with patience, to put words to them - lifting them into the mind and into consciousness as we respond.

The question needs to be asked, "To whom should we pray?" The concept of the Trinity - of God as one in three persons - was developed by early Greek Christians during the first two to three hundred years of the Christian era. It emerged from a growing awareness of the nature of God superimposed on Greek rather than Jewish monotheistic thought. Even today, awareness continues to grow both corporately and individually so it is right for us to ask the same question, "To whom should we pray?" Jesus made it very clear that we should bring our requests and our confessions to the Father (Matthew: 6: 6-14), and this seems to be the pattern in the very early church as reported in the book of Acts. Stephen, however, at his stoning, prayed directly to Jesus. "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And again, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (Acts 7: 59-60). In the book of Revelation, praise and worship is clearly directed first to God, but also to the Lamb.

When I look at the wondrous treasury of Christian music over the centuries from early hymns and anthems to modern day songs and choruses, I find that many comprise prayers of praise and petition directed specifically to one or other persons of the Trinity. We pray to and worship the Father, and we pray to and worship Jesus. Less commonly, but still valid, we pray to the Holy Spirit to ask for anointing, guidance, and presence, and to give thanks for these. This is not the place for an academic discussion of the theology of the Trinity, but as we each turn to God in faith in our many and different traditions, there comes an awareness of the divine presence that evokes worship and response. Inevitably our various ideas of the nature of God are different and always incomplete. These present writings reflect my belief that Jesus as the Son of God speaks with the authority of the Father, as does the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, it seems helpful to address my prayer to the Son, or to the Spirit, rather than to the Father, but I do this with the confidence that there is one God. This is a mystery that I am unlikely to understand fully in this life.

The reason for spelling out my thoughts about the nature of God relates to how you and I receive, or rather perceive, the voice of God to our souls. The question then becomes, "How does God address me?" I have chosen to use the words "my son" knowing that these words are merely a symbol of a deep God-man relationship. This is a precious recognition of the Father-son and Father-daughter relationship that God has chosen as the way that he wishes to relate to all of us as members of his family. However, the question needs to be asked when we sense the words of Jesus speaking to us, why shouldn't it be "my brother" or "my sister"? My reading of the Scriptures shows this to be a relationship that our Lord valued during his earthly ministry. After the resurrection / ascension of Jesus, and with the growing awareness of who God is, it seems to me that the Father, the Son and the Spirit must speak as one - "My son". And like Thomas (John 20: 28), I must respond, "My Lord and my God!" Even this is sometimes too formal in the intimacy of personal prayer. Jesus is recorded as using the phrase "Abba, Father" (Mark 14: 36), and it was also used by Paul (Romans 8: 15; Galatians 4: 6). "Abba, Father," approximates to "Dear Daddy". Perhaps God also needs to be very intimate with me on some occasions. "You chump! You goose! What did you do that for? Why did you say that?"

This book is about sharing the experience of intimacy with God. He speaks both in oneness and as three persons. You, the reader, must use the words that speak to you - "my son", "my daughter", "my servant", "my child", "my people", etc. Then you will be able to share more deeply in the blessing that I have had in devotion, in putting prayers onto paper, and in preparing this book.

Copyright Howard Smith 2002. All Rights reserved.

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