PRAYER

    Greetings to you all in the name of Jesus Christ. Today we are going to discuss about prayer! What is prayer? In very simple words prayer is a medium through which we can communicate with our heavenly Father. We all have a different meaning or explanation for prayer. For me, praying to God is talking with him, sharing all the things of my life with my heavenly father, not only sharing normal things but sharing things that cannot be said or shared with anyone, not even with our parents and even our best friends. Gandhi ji says “prayer is the very soul and The essence of religion, and therefore prayer must be the very core of an individual’s life”.  A person who has devotion and love for God can live without food, but cannot live without praying to God. A prayer is an act of surrendering ourselves to God. By doing so, a person grows out of his limitations, helplessness and insecurities.

Let us see what the Bible tells us about prayer!

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”. (1Thessalonians 5:18) Praying to God in the name of Jesus, and praising him in all circumstances is the will of God for all human beings. Many of us may be having a question why should we pray? what is the reason behind praying? Let me tell you, my dear friends, Prayer is the most personal way to experience God, to encounter him and grow in the knowledge of him. Around all the human beings in the world pray, all know how to pray but do you know what Christian prayer is or how it should be? Let us ask this question to ourselves. Jesus taught us that we should pray to God with patience and complete trust. Now prayer and trust both go hand in hand if you pray without having trust in God then you are just blabbering. Now let’s come to faith/trust, bible says “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen". (Hebrew 11:1). Prayer only when it has faith and trust in god in it works. Elijah was a common person like you and me but he had full faith in God and that is the only reason when he prayed for the rain to stop the rain stopped (1kings:17). And again when Elijah prayed for the rain to come after praying 7 times there was heavy rain(1king:18). Jesus also prayed to God with full faith when Lazarus was dead, he said Lord I thank you for having heard me I knew you always hear me and God answered him and Lazarus was raised from death. Jesus’s disciples peter and john only through faith could heal the crippled beggar at the beautiful gate.

My dear friends, have you experienced God answering your prayers? I am pretty sure that all of us must have experienced it because the word of God says taste and see that the god is good blessed is the man who hopes in him (psalm 34:8). King David in his psalms says “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from my evils” (psalm34:4). I have many times experienced God answering my prayers. God did answer our prayer but only when we abide in Christ and his words abide in us only then Jesus promise us that ask for whatever we wish and it will be done for you. Now we all know what are his words, his words are the bible.

We are human beings and it is our tendency to sin against the Lord, to disobey his commands, we have been doing it for many years. Do you think God will answer our prayers when we are in our sins? No! For God to listen to our prayers we need to repent from our sins ask for forgiveness from the lord and promise him that we would not do that again that is real repentance. Have you ever thought about how loving our father is? He loves us so much that though we sin daily against him knowing or unknowingly his mercy upon us is new every morning. We all know the parable of the prodigal son and lost sheep. When the father got his son and shepherd his sheep back, they rejoiced. The same is with our god, we go away from him due to our sins but when we realize them and repent from them our heavenly father rejoices for us in heaven. Samson was a chosen and blessed man of

God and the bible say the spirit of the Lord was upon him(judges13:9) God gave him power in his hairs. But he sinned against God and the Lord took away his power and he was been took by his enemies but when he realized his mistakes and when he prayed to God asked him to forgive him one last time and give his power back to him for once before he dies God listened to his prayer. Because he repented from his sins, he accepted his mistakes and asked Lord to forgive him. And we all know that God gave his power back to him and Samson grasped the pillars. Even David was a man of God the blessed one, God blessed him with everything, he helped him win many battles and many more but even he sinned against God by attempting adultery with Bathsheba (2 samuel:11) and God punished him. But when David realized his mistake and when he came back to God, he accepted him and answered his prayers. That is the love of our god he loved us so much that he gave his begotten son for yours and my sins (john 3:16).

My dear friends, sometimes it happens that our prayers are not answered! But I tell u do not to be afraid or worried about it. We all have some or the other defects into us in our spiritual life. We often pray to God to remove those defects but God does not remove it because God says my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. The great apostle of Jesus saint Paul has a thorn into his flesh for which he pleaded God many times to remove that thorn from him but God answered him “my grace is sufficient for you “. (2coronthians 12:7-9). God was always with Paul in every situation he answered his prayer. Though Paul went through many tribulations Paul stood firm in his faith. We also see Jesus praying the Gethsemane garden to lord saying “My father if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26:39). Still, Jesus was crucified because that was the will of God. So, when our prayers are not answered we should keep one thing

in mind that God’s grace is sufficient for us and God has some other plans for our life.

In the very first paragraph, I have mentioned that prayer is a medium through which we can communicate with God. We should always look towards one thing that we are not praying to any human or friend or etc., but we are praying to our God, our heavenly father, the creator of this universe, the creator of us. So we cannot pray however we want, there are some verses in the bible which tells us how to pray. Saint Paul in his epistles tells us with thanksgiving we should let our requests are known to God (Philippians 4:6). In the gospel of Matthew and Luke Jesus himself taught his disciples to pray Jesus said whenever you pray do not pray like hypocrites because they love to stand in the synagogues and at the street corners so that people could see them, but whenever you pray go into your room shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus also said when you pray do not use empty phrases as the gentiles do because they think they will be heard for the many words. There are many people around us who pray to impress the community or people around. Jesus says do not be like them for your Father knows what you want. So, pray to God in simple words ask directly what you want.

1.   First of all, we should address God in our prayers, praise him and glorify him.

2.   Then kindly and politely we should request God for our needs.

3.   And lastly with thanksgiving and in the name of Christ, we should end our prayer.

This is the method of praying which bible teaches us.

Lastly, I would like to say that pray regularly with full faith in God, accept your sins and ask God for forgiveness, love your neighbours and pray for them so that by looking at you they will glorify our living god. Prayer should not be our routine; our parents tell us to pray so we have you pray and all that thinking. No! Prayer should be our habit as we have a habit of taking bath, eating food, going to college or work, we should have a habit of praying to God. Because the habit of praying will lead us to a successful life. How can we live without God? God is the most important person of our life and we usually ignore him we don’t give him time saying God knows I have work. That is a very wrong thinking. Till the time we don’t pray, we don’t ask we are not going to be blessed. I love my heavenly father a lot I can’t stay without talking to him. I talk to him I share my happiness my insecurities I honestly accept my sins to him and he so lovingly accepts me and listens to my prayer. Only prayer can change our life though there are 1000 difficulties one prayer of faith can throw out all the difficulties of your life my friends.

So, from now let us submit our lives to our god and make a habit of praying to him regularly to make our life happy and blessed. 

Article by Preeti R Swami