Setting Aside Time To Pray, By Lou Beard.

Thanks to Lou for these beautiful thoughts on prayer.
Prayer, very simply put, is a conversation with God. It can be broken down into different categories. There are prayers of praise, where we can express how wonderful and awesome God is. There are prayers of thanks, where we can thank The Lord for all he has done for us, or for specific ways in which he has helped us. Then there are prayers of request, either for ourselves or for others.

The main thing about prayer, is that God wants to hear it all. The big things, and the small things. From thanking him for keeping us safe in a dangerous situation, to thanking him for the sunshine. From asking The Lord to guide rescue workers, to asking him to guide you to find the thing you’ve just lost. I’ve asked for help to find the lid off something that’s rolled away, and the earring that’s bounced onto the floor somewhere. God wants to hear all our prayers. He wants us to put our full trust in him. To me, prayer is talking to Jesus, my closest friend. Someone who knows everything about me, and still loves me.

“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.” (James 5: 13.)

Prayers of praise can sometimes seem difficult, especially if we are going through a difficult time, but I’ve found that praising The Lord helps me feel better. Some people use the psalms or other scripture to praise God. Personally I use music. Even if I’m having a rubbish day, if I put Christian songs on, it lifts my mood. Sometimes I start to sing along, or other times I just listen. But it’s all praising The Lord.

Some people are very good at praying aloud. It all flows beautifully, with well formed sentences. Others, like me, can’t seem to get the words out tidily! My mind sometimes goes blank when I’m praying aloud, probably because I’m not used to doing it. Some people aren’t happy to pray aloud at all. They prefer to talk to God quietly in their minds. All of these ways of praying are perfectly acceptable to God. They are all pleasing to him. He wants to hear our prayers. He also wants us to listen for his response.

Some people hear God speaking to them. I wish I did! But I think most of us get a strong feeling about something or other God wants us to do, or get the confirmation by things which others say to us, or things we see.

God wants a prayer relationship with all of us. He wants to hear us thank him for the good things which have happened to us, like being able to spend time with friends, sending someone at just the right time when you’re lost, to the requests we make of him, to help us through the day, or through a difficult situation, and for him to show us his will.

Sometimes all we can pray is, please help me Lord. All prayer is worth praying. All prayer strengthens our relationship with God. It’s ok to sometimes not know exactly what to pray, when we’re suddenly faced with a difficult situation.

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8: 26.)

I suppose what that means is that whatever we are going through, Jesus is right there with us. He feels our joys, and our sorrows and pains. So as God the Father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Spirit are three in one, they work together to get our prayers to God.

Every morning my intention is to wake up and say, This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. Well, some days I remember to say it, and other days I don’t. But I don’t give up on doing it.

I recently read a book about The Lord’s prayer and Psalm 23. The writer of the book recommends saying the Lord’s prayer and Psalm 23 every day. There is so much in both of those. Again, I’m trying to do it. I’m alright with the Lord’s prayer, but I’ve read Psalm 23 from various translations of the Bible, and sang several versions of it, that I can’t say it all the way through without getting in a huge muddle!

The Lord’s prayer, as we know it, comes directly from Jesus’ teaching. He is telling his disciples how to pray, how they don’t need to use lots of words, because God already knows what they will ask before they ask it. The same applies to us.

“This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6: 9-13.)

Thy will be done is often the hardest bit to get our heads around. We often think we know what’s best, what we need etc, but God sees the bigger picture. Sometimes his will is not our will. I have a few situations like that myself. I don’t understand why God hasn’t given me a certain thing, but I’m trusting that he knows best. And I can assure you that it’s not always easy. Trusting is something I’m still learning to do.

I’ve heard it put this way. God hears all our prayer requests. Sometimes his answer is yes, sometimes it’s no, and sometimes it’s not yet. Again it comes down to trust.

The other part of The Lord’s prayer which can be hard to get our heads around is asking for our sins to be forgiven, and forgiving those who have sinned against us. There is not one of us who hasn’t had a wrong thought, or done a wrong thing at some time or other. Jesus is the only one who walked on this earth and never sinned. So whether we like to admit it or not, we need to confess our sins to God, who forgives us. We also need to forgive those who have done wrong to us. Holding something against someone won’t make any difference to that person at all, it only hurts us. Again, that forgiveness is an ongoing thing.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

It can be hard to imagine that the God who created the earth and all that’s in it, is interested in hearing about the things that matter to us. But he is interested. It’s by prayer that we can draw closer to him and strengthen our relationship with him.