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Prayer as most people rightly assume, is the expression of our thoughts and emotions to the Almighty, it is pouring of the heart in front of Him. The Almighty listens, receives and answers our petitions presented to Him in the form of prayers, He is always and all time ready to answer our honest prayers. We should express ourselves to Him in order for Him to answer us and help us. Prayer provides an opportunity to us to talk to the Almighty, it is a kind of wireless communication from our heart to His heart. It costs nothing and need not be loud, artificial, heavily worded or even repeated. The prayer just needs to have clarity in terms of expression, be clear in what you want to explain or express. A person might argue, if the Almighty is all knowing, then why there is need to pray? He knows our condition and our heart, then why should we communicate it through prayer? It is correct that the Almighty is all-knowing and knows our heart and situations, there is nothing that you can tell Him that He doesn't know, but He only wants that we should express it to Him, so that He can intervene and help us, assist us.
For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. {Psalms 139:4}
The Almighty does not interferes with our free-will or work against the same, although He warns us when we make incorrect or unrighteous decisions, that is why He waits till we call Him to help or assistance. Many will still say, when we have expressed ourselves to the Almighty, then why don't we hear or see any responses to the same? The Almighty answers and responds also, it is only that we are unable to hear or see them. Sometimes, the Almighty helps us quickly to deliver us from our troubles or difficulties seeing the urgency of the situations, and sometimes He wants us to be patient, to arrive at the expected results over time. We might not understand the results until the Almighty reveals them to us, because we are accustomed to differentiate the results as good or bad depending on what benefits we derive from them. The Almighty does not provide us with what we think is the best, but what works to our best.
The Almighty understands each and every tongue, language is no barrier to Him. He understands us in our own tongue and simplicity of the language, how childish or little it may appear. Some languages contain sounds that other languages simply do not contain and unless a person is raised from babyhood forming those sounds, it is not always possible
to make the tongue produce unfamiliar sounds. No one, parent or otherwise, refuses to respond to someone calling his or her name if the person calling cannot pronounce the name perfectly or speaks with a lisp. For example, a French man calling his British friend named Thomson as 'Tomson' will not go unacknowledged just because the French language does not contains the 'th' sound. Likewise, a person named Rachelle would not ignore someone from China pronouncing her name 'Lachelle', she would be understanding because Chinese does not contain the 'r' sound. Likewise when we make our petitions in front of the Almighty, we might be addressing His name in our tongue, but He is not ignorant of the prayer, just because we did not call His name or addressed Him perfectly. When we pray, it is the honesty of expression that is of importance, and not exactly the medium of expression. Language is just a medium to communicate, sophistication of the language or use of eloquent words is not a major concern, as the Almighty does not observes our command over the language but our intentions and thoughts. Just like a child talks to the parent, so are we to pray to our Heavenly Father, there is nothing hidden from Him, He knows us even if we do not express ourselves honestly to Him. Prayer should always be coupled with faith, without faith the prayer will lose it's significance and might escape the attention of the Almighty. Just like you will not hear or acknowledge a person who does not trusts you or your words, similarly the Almighty will not acknowledge our prayers if we do not have faith in Him or if we do not believe His works. Although the Almighty is all time ready to answer us the moment we call Him in faith. Praying without faith is like waiting for a lock to be opened without the key, or waiting for a boat to move through wind which is missing the sails, nothing happens.
And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. {Matthew 21:22}
As instructed, whatever we want to communicate or ask, we should put it through prayer to the Almighty.
But in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. {Philippians 4:6}
Whatever be your desires, wishes or whatever you want to convey, put it in prayers. Ask the Heavenly Father in the name of Yahushua, believing Him and having faith in His promises, He will definitely answer and work to your benefit. Nothing is too difficult or too complex for the Almighty to resolve, He rules over the worlds, at the same time have patience. When we have decided what to pray or convey a person might next consider is, what is the best method to pray or how a person should pray. The answer to this can be found in this verse,
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. {Matthew 6:6}
As far as possible, we should pray solitary. The purpose of the prayer is to establish a communication with the Heavenly Father, which can be done by praying alone only. When no one is noticing or when we are not in the notice of anyone, we can consider to pray. We can pray by speaking or we can pray silently in the heart.
And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. {Matthew 14:23}
And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. {Mark 1:35}
There are instances and examples in the scriptures which present the correct posture while praying,
And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed. {Luke 22:41}
And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all. {Acts 20:36}
When we have retired to a solitary and peaceful place, where no one but only the Almighty can see, no one but only He can hear, we should bow on our knees humbly and present our sincere prayers to Him. Bowing and kneeling is an indication of humbling ourselves before the Almighty. At the same time it is not a mandate that we should bow, as a person might be humble while standing also. There are some who believe that bowing one's knees is the only acceptable way to pray to Almighty, but the Scriptural evidence show that He honored prayer in other postures as well. *Elijah prayed sitting under the tree, Joshua prayed while lying down on the ground, Prophet Jonah prayed while he was in the belly of a fish, Peter prayed while walking on the water, the Publican prayed standing as mentioned in the book of Luke, Stephen prayed while looking towards heaven, Paul and Silas prayed with their feet fast in the stocks, and there are examples of the people who prayed while they were lying sick. The Almighty understands our situations and circumstances, and acknowledges also. Similarly, there is no clear instruction regarding what should be the position of the hands while praying. There are examples in the scriptures where people pray with hands raised, folded or clasped. And examples which show people praying with their eyes open or looking up towards heaven, closing of the eyes is done only in order to disconnect from the distractions around, and concentrate in prayer. What is common in all the postures is the humility of the heart and the total submission to or dependence on the Almighty. Right posture or attitude of the heart matters more to the Almighty than the right posture of the body. A humble and submissive soul should be the focus while praying, accompanied with bowing or kneeling, as and when the circumstances and time allow. Prayer is never to be a particular set of words or motions we go through in order to buy divine favor. Overall, pray speaking or silently in the heart when walking, when busy with the daily work routines, when sitting idle in a park, when in a journey, when keeping alone or surrounded by crowd, pray at any time with a humble spirit.
Before praying, consider and confess your own faults, mistakes and sins before the Almighty through prayer, and ask for forgiveness of the same. If we keep our faults and mistakes with us, or do not confess them to the Almighty, then our prayer will not be heard.
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. {Psalms 66:18}
It is important to confess firstly our own sins and ask the Almighty to forgive us for the same, before we start praying for anything. Confession of our mistakes to the Almighty is done through the prayer itself.
Shortage of time gaps and the busy schedule makes it difficult to allocate time exclusively to pray, in such situations people might rush on with the prayers. But if there appears to be some busyness, it is better to attend to the busy schedule first than to pray hastily.
Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. {Ecclesiastes 5:2}
Take all the time you need. Don't rush. Think when you pray. If you were talking to the president of your country, you would be alert, likewise be alert and reverent when you talk to the Almighty. When we talk prayer, we think of it as something which allows us to ask anything from the Almighty. Praying is not asking of things only, asking is only a part of it. A little boy did not say grace at the table one morning. His father asked why. The answer came, 'We don't need to pray for bread today. I looked in the bread box and there is enough for three days.' Prayer is not done to achieve anything which we do not posses, nor is it a formal recitation of a set of words for specific situations or needs. Our Heavenly Father knows what we require, before we ask to Him of the same.
For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. {Matthew 6:8}
A person might consider, the Almighty knows my needs, then why should I pray for it? Why don't I receive what I wanted? Is it to make the Almighty willing to provide the things prayed for? We do not pray to the Almighty in order to make Him willing, as He is always willing to give us the best of the gifts without our being worthy of the same. If we do not pray for what we wanted, getting which is beyond our control, and we get it, then we will have no importance of the same nor will we be thankful to the Almighty. We will remain occupied with our pride and boastfulness, that our own hard work and efforts made things possible. A prideful heart can not pray. Prayer provides us an opportunity to talk to the Almighty, so that we might realize the importance and respect the results of the prayer. We do not pray to the Almighty to make Him known of our needs only, we pray in order to observe a communication with Him. If we ask anything and we get it, then it was for our good, if we don't get it, then it was for our better, as the Almighty has reserved for us something better than what we wanted. Thus instead of expecting the results of the prayer to be of our likeness, we should conclude the prayer with what the Almighty considers to be the best be realized.
Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.{Luke 22:42}
The fear of unanswered prayers often lead people to vague prayers, even if the prayers are answered, the people might not notice. Instead of saying "Father, let Sister Anjali be blessed" pray like "Father, If it be according to your will, please let Sister Anjali find a suitable job profile so that she can run her home comfortably without depending on routine work allocations." The clarity of words in the prayer helps in bringing about positive changes in an acceptable way. We get discouraged when we do not notice any positive responses, however, none of our sincere prayers escape His attention. It is only that when the prayer gets answered, we feel that it was just a coincidence and involve ourselves in other areas of need or difficulties. Firstly, we should not cease to pray even if we do not notice any positive changes, that is, we should persevere in prayer. The danger is that in temptation and trial, people become discouraged, and fail to persevere in prayer. We should not give up, as our prayers will definitely be answered over time. Another danger is keeping over-confidence of the prayer being heard. Once a person notices that prayer changes things which are beyond our control, a person might take it for granted and when his prayers are not answered for a short while, for whatever reasons, he may give up considering that it won't work any longer now. Do not take prayers for granted and be consistent in praying. Consistent prayers over time sets the background of any difficult work to be carried out in the best possible way. When consistent prayers over time are answered, we might notice the results which were even better than what we expected. This way, prayer helps us develop faith and gratitude towards the Almighty. We should pray in order to observe a communication or relationship with the Almighty, irrespective of the thought that we might not be heard. Our job is to pray honestly and the rest will be taken care of by the Almighty, He knows when to answer and what to answer. Secondly, we should be thankful to the Almighty for anything good noticed in our life. Be thankful, express your gratitude and respect towards the Almighty through prayers. Prayer is not done for asking only but to convey gratitude also, thank the Almighty, be grateful, praise Him for His goodness, kindness, mercy, cares and unconditional love towards us.
O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. {Psalms 106:1}
Prayer is not limited to self only. It encompasses a vast area of praying for anything and for anybody, even strangers. It is good and acceptable to pray for friends, family or neighbours and at the same time, do not let the thought, that your prayer is only keeping the things running, take control of the prayer itself. When you notice that your friend is in difficult times, or your neighbour is suffering through sickness of any type, or your fellow worker is struggling at the work, or any of your family members is under stress, then pray for them with an unconditional and selfless heart. Pray for them which you notice are in any kind of trouble, for them also whom you do not know. Pray for those who hate you, who consider you as their enemies that they may be blessed with the right mind and viewpoints. If you notice any person in tension, sufferings, distress, troubles or any kinds of difficulties, then pray to the Almighty, that He might relieve them of their troubles. Sometimes, the situations and circumstances of the life appear to be beyond our control, some people might have hurt us knowingly or unknowingly, whether they be intentional or unintentional in their actions and decisions. All these put heaviness on the heart, we might feel chocked off and unwilling to talk to anyone of the same. But our Heavenly Father is not unaware of our situations and circumstances, His heart of love is touched by our sorrows and even by our utterances of them. Take to Him everything that perplexes the mind. Nothing is too great for Him to bear, nothing in any way that concerns our peace is too small for Him to notice. There is no chapter in our experience too dark for Him to read; there is no perplexity too difficult for Him to unravel. Pray to forgive them that have caused hurt in any way, and ask the Almighty that He may forgive them of their intentional or unintentional actions. Pour out your sorrows, troubles, difficulties, heaviness of the heart in front of Him. Unburden your heart in front of the Almighty, He listens patiently. Pray to Him to help, ask Him to help, as the situations are too difficult to bear, to guide, as there appears to be no way out of the troubles, to provide the strength to enable us to bear the heaviness, to provide the right mindset to enable us to walk righteously, to provide the courage that we may forgive those who hurt us, to provide the kindness and mercy that we may be of any good help to others. Cultivate the habit of talking with the Saviour when you are alone, when you are walking, and when you are busy with your daily labor. Let the heart be continually absorbed in silent petition for help, for light, for strength, for knowledge, for the good of others. Do not be discouraged, persevere in prayer and be thankful always for any and every blessing.
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* Please see 1 Kings 19:4, Joshua 5:14, Jonah 2:1, Matthew 14:30, Luke 18:13, Acts 7:54-60, Acts 16:24-25.
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