Just what is prayer? There are formula, planned, and impromptu prayers; supplication, thanksgiving, adoration, confession and intercession prayers; spoken, unspoken, and written prayers; prayers to ancestors, saints, statues and gods; prayer chains, prayer breakfasts, and prayer days. It is one of the great mysteries of Christianity: the essence of our faith relationship with God. But what is prayer?
Prayer is communion with God. So often, people say they don’t know how to pray. We believe prayer to be the most basic of all communication – and that most people do pray: – even those who say they don’t know how. Some people even pray when they are not aware they are praying. Most people who say they don’t know how to pray mean they don’t know how to pray effectively, and in the proper manner.
CLICK on picture to listen to Hear My Prayer - Maranatha Singers
How is your prayer life? Are you fearful of talking with your Heavenly Father? Do you think you are not eloquent enough? Your requests are frivolous? That God might see the wrongs you’ve done if you talk with Him? Do you fear He is angry with you and doesn’t want to hear you or speak to you? Do you ever listen for His voice?
To be effective communication, this communion with God must go two-ways. So often we spend our time enumerating our needs and wants to God non-stop and never stop to listen for a reply. Do we believe God answers all our prayers? Do we believe if God doesn’t answer our requests immediately (and in the affirmative) that He has not answered at all?
Think about how your prayers affect your relationship with God, and vice versa. And know this: Your Father in Heaven loves you. He longs to talk with you. The Bible speaks of God’s love for us and about prayer on almost every page. Below are just a few Scriptures and quotes for you to read to gain insight on how your Father in Heaven feels about you, and how to pray.
“Be still, and know that I am God,”
~Psalm 46:10a
“The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.”
~Psalm 145:17-19
“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
~Matthew 6:6
“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
~Titus 3:3-7
“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”
~Mark 1:35
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
~2 Chronicles 7:14
“do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
~Philippians 4:6
“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing – nothing.”
~Saint Francis of Assisi
“Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”
~Søren Kierkegaard
“I have quitted all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me. And I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention and a general fond regard to God, which I may call an actual presence of God — or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God, which often causes in me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great, that I am forced to use means to moderate them, and to prevent their appearance to others.”
~Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691)