what me pray?
What ME pray?
Many religions pray. People in most religions would give you good reasons to pray. Some might say “Prayer centers you.” Or “It quiets your spirit.” Or “It helps you work our your problems. “ But for Christians prayer is an essential part of who we are. “Why should I pray?”, you ask.
1. The first reason Christians should pray is that we have a God who hears us. You must realize who it is that we are praying to:
Psalm 65:2 “O You who hear prayer, to You all men come.” We serve a living, loving God, who is the creator of the universe and yet LISTENS when we pray. Not only does He listen when we pray but He pays attention to what we have to say.
Psalm 66:19 “But certainly God has heard; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.” Prayer for the believer is a conversation with an awesome God. Conversation can’t happen when only one person does the talking, so it is important when writing about prayer that I make it clear that I am not speaking about just chanting or repeating words. Prayer is speaking but it is also listening. Psalm 5:3 “In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice; in the morning I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch.” Not only is He a living God who listens, it makes Him happy when we pray (Psalm 72:15) and He answers with “saving truth”. (Psalm 69:13)
2. Another reason that we, as believers, should pray is in response to His love. If you have Jesus in your life and have accepted His forgivenness, if you realize the depravation and need that you had prior to coming to Christ and now He has lifted you up and made you His child, you will WANT to talk to Him in response. Psalm 42:8 “The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life.”
3. A third reason that Christians should pray is that we are commanded to do it. If the fact that our Lord is Living, loving, truthful and listens to us when we pray isn’t enough and the fact that you are forgiven and adopted into God’s family isn’t enough to cause you to pray in response, then Christians should pray because it’s commanded that we do so. Psalm 32:6 “ Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found:”
4. Another reason we should pray is that it works. James 5:15-16 states “and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”
Ok, so hopefully, I’ve made my point and you are now beginning to think about prayer. So you ask, “what do I pray about?”
Psalms gives us a few ideas:
1. When we need help Psalm 5:2, Psalm 88:13
2. When we have a just cause Psalm 17:1
3. For safety Psalm 32:6
4. When we or others are sick Psalm 35:13
5. When you feel alone Psalm 39:12
6. When we need correction and feel God is angry with you Psalm 80:4, Psalm 141:5
7. Pray against wickedness Psalm 141:5
8. When you (or others) are wrongly accused Psalm 109:7
9. If other people ask for you to come beside them and pray for their needs (Psalms, James) People call or email the Sun Grove prayer chain and ask for others to come along side them asking the God of Heaven to help in their time of need. Are you interested in joining us? You can be someone just trying out this prayer thing or someone who has been praying for a long time. The only criteria needed to be a part of this ministry is a commitment to spend a few minutes each day in prayer.
posted by Pam D at 1:36 PM
2 Comments:
When I was at St Paul's Episcopal, Fr. David spoke of there being different kinds of prayer. From him I learned there was something called a prayer of adoration, and wordless, silent prayer.
A few years before that, my chaplain at the Union Recue mission in Los Angeles, Pat Davis, was teaching our Bible class, and he remarked that, "Words are a very flawed and inadequate means of communication. Still, they're the best thing we've got."
I know what he means. Without words, you can't argue a case in court. On the other hand, words often involve confusion and misunderstanding.
In one of those same classes, once, Pat taught us Romans 8:26-27, and asked us what it meant, these groans, or, in a different translation, this sighing.
----------------------
Edited by Porta.
This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.
The New Being by Paul Tillich
The New Being was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1955.
Chapter 18: The Paradox of Prayer
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
ROMANS 8:26-27.
This passage of Romans about the Spirit interceding for us "with sighs too deep for words" belongs to the most mysterious of Paul’s sayings. It expresses the experience of a man who knew how to pray and who, because he knew how to pray, said that he did not know how to pray.
Paul certainly knew the "Our Father" when he wrote that we do not know how to pray. It does not prove that we know how to pray when we make a liturgical law out of the example of praying which Jesus gave to his disciples.
Very often the spontaneous prayer is an ordinary conversation with somebody who is called "God," but who is actually another man to whom we tell things, often at great length, to whom we give thanks and of whom we ask favors. This certainly does not prove that we know how to pray.
The liturgical Churches which use classical formulas should ask themselves whether they do not prevent the people of our time from praying as they honestly can.
And the non-liturgical Churches who give the freedom to make up prayers at any moment, should ask themselves whether they do not profane prayer and deprive it of its mystery.
Paul gives a mysterious solution to the question of the right prayer: It is God Himself who prayers through us, when we pray to Him. God Himself in us: that is what Spirit means. Spirit is another word for "God present," with shaking, inspiring, transforming power. Something in us, which is not we ourselves, intercedes before God for us.
We cannot bridge the gap between God and ourselves even through the most intensive and frequent prayers; the gap between God and ourselves can be bridged only by God.
And so Paul gives us the surprising picture of God interceding for us before Himself. He "searches the hearts of men." Who else can bring our whole being before God except God Himself, who alone knows the deep things in our soul?
This may help us also to understand the most mysterious part of Paul’s description of prayer, namely, that the Spirit "intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Just because every prayer is humanly impossible, just because it brings deeper levels of our being before God than the level of consciousness, something happens in it that cannot be expressed in words.
Words, created by and used in our conscious life, are not the essence of prayer. The essence of prayer is the act of God who is working in us and raises our whole being to Himself. The way in which this happens is called by Paul "sighing." Sighing is an expression of the weakness of our creaturely existence. Only in terms of wordless sighs can we approach God, and even these sighs are His work in us.
Which kind of prayer is most adequate to our relation to God? The prayer in which we thank or the prayer in which we beg, the prayer of intercession or of confession or of praise? Paul does not make these distinctions. They are dependent on words; but the sighing of the Spirit in us is too deep for words and for the distinction of kinds of prayer. The Spiritual prayer is elevation to God in the power of God and it includes all forms of prayer.
To those who feel that they cannot find the words of prayer and remain silent towards God. This may be lack of Spirit. But silence may be silent prayer, namely, the sighs which are too deep for words. Then He who searches the hearts of men, knows and hears.
---------------
Edited by Porta.
From annunciationtrust.org.uk
Quakers believe that the Light within is not an abstract phrase but an experience, that the Light is present and everyone can have a living experience of God within. The Light is not divided, but the same Light is in all and is a force for unity and we can therefore test our leadings in community.
It is in silence that we come closest to God. The silent meeting is not an end in itself, but the silence leads us into stillness and the stillness leads to an awareness of the presence of God.
------------------------
When I was fresh in my new-found faith, I consulted Chaplain Pat about prayer.
I had, at this point, no gut feeling of God's existence. Raised godless, beief in God was emotionally and viscerally strange to me. I chose to believe, but I did not "feel" that God existed, the way that you "feel" you will fall, if you jump off the roof. I chose to "believe" God exists, but this choice was was undertaken by me barren of any visceral confirmation. It was as if i were choosing to believe that if I were to jump off the roof, I would *not* fall: i.e., it went against my gut to believe in God. But I realized that my gut was not the boss of me, and I could choose to believe whatever I decided to believe, irrespective of whether it jibed with my "feelings" or not.
Pat said of prayer that since it was new to me, I should start out with five minutes a day, and work up to twenty. I got ambitious, and went for fifteen minutes, but I hadn't any ideas what to pray, and I went for a "meditative" prayer as I lay on my back in my bunk one afternoon, simply repeating the word, "God," over and over, with my eyes closed. Then I stopped with any words at all, and i was just calling to God wordlessly.
That was when I experienced the presence of God, a strange warmth washed through me, as I was enfoulded in the arms of One so big, and I so small, One whose enfolding arms cherished and protected me with strength and love to which I happily surrendered, my feminine to the Ultimate masculine. The only time I ever felt girlish.
It was a wordless experience. Prayer.
------------------
I was on the phone with Jim Ring one day some years ago, and he surprised me with, "Let's pray." I never prayed with someone over the phone before that, but I am always up for prayer, so we did. I don't worry, as Tillich seems to, about profaning prayer by praying with words in petition, thanks, etc., at the drop of a hat. After all, if God doesn't like it, He can always intercede with a groan.
David,
thank you for your response. I fully agree with you. Prayer can and often should be silent. Not just not outloud quiet - but wordless quiet as you stated. Just enjoying the presence of God and communing with him is exactly what prayer is all about.
But prayer is other things too. We just often are too busy wanting to TELL GOD about us that we forget the being with him.
Pam
Post a Comment
<< Home