Mind of a Christian

Prayer

One day, I was talking to another person about Christian stuff, and he asked if I pray. Then he asked if I prayed the Hail Mary. That question, among other scenarios, got me thinking about the nature of prayers.

Objectively, or abstractly, there's nothing wrong with repeating a particular prayer or certain lines in your prayer. Let's say you pray the request, "Lord, keep me and guide me, amen." Are we divinely prohibited from saying this at the end of each of our prayers?

No. In fact, Jesus prayed the same prayer three times in succession (Matthew 26 : 39-45). So, by itself, praying the same thing repeatedly is not inherently bad.

But the point of prayer is not to memorize a chunk of text and recite it when your parents ask you to, or when the church prompters tell you to. It's not something we should treat as going through the motions.

That's because prayer is something so much more important: it's how we communicate with God. It's how we act based on our relationship and perception of Him. At its core, it's a heart to heart thing.

I used to think that I shouldn't keep asking for God's help because I thought that I was burdening Him. I used to think that He wanted me to be self sufficient, and that being self sufficient is a mark of a mature Christian. But that's totally not the case, and I'm glad that God has allowed me to realize that.

Being able to recognize that we, as tremendously faulty and hopeless sinners, need God puts us in the right place for prayer. The psalmist writes:

"The LORD sustains the humble
but casts the wicked to the ground."
(Psalm 147 : 6 NIV)

and

"His pleasures is not in the strength of the horse,

nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
the LORD delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love."
(Psalm 147 : 10-11 NIV)

God wants us to realize that He is the source of our strength, our abilities, our everything! He wants us to lean on Him and allow Him to steer our lives in the path that keeps bringing us closer and closer to him. If we humble ourselves and acknowledge that God sustains us, then we've tuned into Him and we're ready for prayer:

"if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
(2 Chronicles 7 : 14 NIV)

It's also important to have confidence in our prayers. It sounds obvious, but it's something to be aware of. Why should we pray to God if we doubt His power and guidance and faithfulness in answering? Instead, let us do what James considers when he writes:

"But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."
(James 1 : 6-8 NIV)

Just like when we trust God in forgiving our sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, should we not also trust God in answering our prayers? We can trust Him with big things such as our eternal destiny - let us trust Him in answering our prayers!

Let us be like David when he writes:

"In the morning LORD, you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait expectantly."
(Psalm 5 : 3 NIV)

Now, He will not always say yes to our prayers, especially if we ask for things that ultimately are not good for us. Again, James writes about this:

"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
(James 4 : 3 NIV)

So let's make sure we're aligned with God's will, both our lives and our requests! As John writes:

"Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us."
(1 John 3 : 21 - 23 NIV)

And as Jesus has said:

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."
(John 15 : 7-8 NIV)

This is something that I must do and work on constantly too, so let's do it together :D

So, when we pray, let us prepare our hearts. Let us with utmost honesty humble ourselves - not for show, not to make ourselves feel better, but to realize that we truly need God. Let us seek Him. Then, let us also trust that our God is faithful, and wait for His response.

* * *

Before I close off this chapter, I would also like to ask for a prayer request. All I can say is that I and the others need God's strength to persevere. This is something really important to me. I'm bound to not disclose details, so forgive me for being very vague. But, will you pray for my unspoken prayer?

Thank you.

On the next chapter, I'm going to share some Christian reads that I really like on Wattpad. Stay tuned :)

"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 ESV