How to Pray

PrayerGuy · Newbie Joined: May 04, 2006 Posts: 50 Status: **Offline**

Let's Start by defining prayer.

Prayer:
1.) A request
2.) Communications with God
3.) The act of attempting to communicate with the supernatural.

Most religions support some form of prayer. Prayer can be done during church services or mass, or it can be said as a group or even alone. In Christianity, prayer is typically used to ask for something from God, repent for sins, give thanks, or simply to praise God.

Even within Christianity the different religions pray differently. Since everyone prays differently it is hard to say one step by step approach to prayer. Some prayers can be complicated, some easy. Here is a discussion of some forms of prayer that are used to help you find what is best for you.

The simplest form: Conversation. Start a conversation with God. Set aside some time during each day, whenever you are most comfortable and just talk to God. Most people find it easier to spend time before bed or right after they wake up in the morning. Just relax and meditate, think about things that have been happening and just let go. Listen and feel God presence.

Written Prayer: â€œJust sitting talking to yourselfâ€ might make some feel a little uneasy. Written Prayer might help to get things started. Read or recite known prayers. Get a book on prayer or look in the forums here for various prayers. Set out a structure. Some people prefer to say different prayers on different days, or at different times. There are many books like the Vision Series. I first saw Vision 2000 several years back. There now have one for each year. These books coincide with the daily Gospel Readings. There are prayers to pray before and after meditation, the reading, a quote or story to meditate on, almost like a homily. It takes about 20 minutes a day and will help you to foster a good relationship and become more comfortable with God.

Structured Prayer: This is where written prayer is used in repetition. Often times it is more than one prayer. For example, praying the Rosary. This even has a tool to use in order to keep track of what prayer you are on. (Side note: Some Christian religions have lost touch with this tradition and view the Rosary as a cultish object. When it comes down to it a Rosary is just a simple counting tool. There are no magical beliefs behind it, the Rosary is simply used for counting and is actually not needed for the prayers which are typically said with it.) A Rosary can be used to keep track of many different prayers. It is used to pray the Rosary, Chaplets and more. I have also seen prayer wheels, prayer request board and so on that use structured techniques. In these cases people will often set a ritual if you will, in which they pick a cause or person to pray for and have certain set prayers to pray with the intention for that cause or person. There are also books that lead the prayer and meditation like mentioned above the Vision Series. Daily devotionals and more.

Praying to others: Being that prayer at its simplest definition is a request, it is perfectly acceptable to ask others to pray for you. In some faiths this is most often someone of importance in the faith or to the petitioner and usually that someone is dead. This can be a relative that has passed, or someone like a saint. This kind of prayer is often mistaken for praise to whoever you ask for prayer. This should never be the case; the only one that should be praised is God. When praying to a relative, saint or other person of importance, it is an act of asking them to intervene with God on your behalf. The example I always give is: as a child you wanted something from dad, but you knew you would not be able to convince him, so you went and convinced your mom and asked her to talk your father into it. This is the same idea. While you can always talk to God and ask Him for anything, in some cases using a bigger voice can get more attention.

Bottom line, prayer can be used in many different forms; even a simple good deed can be offered up as a prayer. You did that good deed for the greater Glory of God.

So go forth now and try several different forms of prayer. Find out which you like the best and what better suits your relationship with God.

Yours in Christ,

PrayerGuy

GuardianMan101 · Newbie Joined: Jan 18, 2012 Posts: 3 Status: **Offline**

When You pray it shouldn\'t be some kind of strict awkward moment where you address God and then forget everything about it later. Prayer is the way we speak with our Father in Heaven and can be done through out the entire day, whether it be out loud or in our heads. The form of prayer should be simple, and done as follows: Address our Father in Heaven, Give thanks for things that you have received from Him, Ask for what you need, Then end in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ. Have a great one!