Introduction to prayer

What prayer is

Most of you will know the story of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp.  Whenever he wanted anything, all he had to do was to rub his lamp and a genie appeared who did whatever Aladdin asked him to.

Many people when they pray are like Aladdin.  They think that prayer is a kind of magic and that, if they use more or less the right words, God ought to do everything they want.  When he seems to take no notice, they complain that he has let them down and they say that they will have no more to do with him.

What these people do not understand is that prayer is something much more than asking for this or that.  Prayer is talking with God in order to get to know him, to love him and to do his will.  You would be very unusual boys and girls if you never spoke to your parents except to ask for something; and it is wrong to treat God, who is our good Heavenly Father, as a stranger or only talk to him in order to get something out of him.

Have you ever thought that, of all living creatures on this earth, we human beings are the only ones who can speak to our Maker?  The animals and birds do not even know that there is a God, and so they live their lives without ever being able to have anything to do with him.  You will find some people who think that prayer is silly.  What is silly, as well as wrong, is not to use this knowledge and power, which we alone have, of getting to know the great God who made, not only this earth and everything in it, but the whole, vast Universe as well.


Prayer and its divisions

Let us now think what our prayers should include besides asking for things which we and others need.

Worship and adoration

First, we should make what are called acts of worship or adoration.  We should say the kind of things that we would say if we could see God, such as, “My God, I worship and adore you”, or “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.  Heaven and earth are full of your glory.  Glory be to you, O Lord most high” or “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”.

Thanksgiving

Then we should thank God for all his goodness to us in this life and for all he has done and is doing, to bring us to Heaven in the next life.

Confession

Besides adoration and thanksgiving we ought also to confess or own up to our sins.  We must always remember that the wrong things we think and say and do make us unfit even to approach God.  That is why, when we pray, we tell God we are sorry for them.


Keeping our minds on God

When we say our prayers, it is very important that we should keep our minds on God and not just recite a form of words.  Some of you may remember the king in Hamlet, the play by Shakespeare.  The king has been trying to pray to ask God to forgive him.  At last he gets up from his knees and says,

“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to Heaven go”
(Act 4, Scene iii)

So we cannot pray properly if we are thinking about something else.  This means that as soon as we realise that our thoughts are wandering, we must bring them back at once and fix our minds on our prayers again.

The importance of silence

But prayer is more than just speaking to God: it is the lifting up of the whole mind to God.  And so we can also pray without any words at all, that is, by emptying our minds of all thoughts and just being with God in silence.  When we find our minds wandering we can bring them back to God by saying a short prayer, such as “My God, I love you” or simply “Jesus”.


Praying often

Like all the powers of our mind and body, prayer needs practice.  Just as no one can learn to walk or read all at once, so we cannot learn to pray without praying often.  So, besides our regular times for prayer, we can talk to God for just a few moments on and off during the day, telling him that we want to love him above all else.  God is interested in us and what we do, so talk to him about anything, and talk to him in a natural way.

SUMMARY

1. When we say our prayers we are talking to God in order to get to know him, to love him and to do his will.  Prayer includes worship or adoration, thanksgiving, and confession of sin as well as asking.

2. In addition to that, we can also pray without words by emptying our minds of thoughts and just being with God in silence.

3. We learn to pray by praying often.