Prayer

Prayer. - We all are very familiar with the word Prayer as it is part of our daily lives but do we ever think about the deeper meaning of Prayer ?

What is a Prayer ? It is our channel of communication with God.
Through prayer we ask God for favours, we ask God for help, we ask for forgiveness for the sins that we have committed, we also thank God for favours received in our life.
The great thing about Prayer is that we can pray any time any place. It is our toll free number to God and God is always reachable through this.

Even the person who does not pray would have at least once said in his/her life "Please let the traffic light be green, so I can reach office on time." Or "Please let India win this cricket match!" These are also prayers.

For whom do we pray? We pray for ourselves, we pray for our loved ones, we pray for our friends. Sometimes we also pray for people whom we do not know at all, strangers who are victims of an accident or illness or war.

A very few of us also pray for their enemies, praying that one day they become their friends as well.

What are the prayers that we pray ? There are many prayers in the Bible.
Perhaps the best-known prayer in the Bible is the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father Who Art in Heaven ..." (Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2-4).

Prayers can be short or long.
In Mathew 6:7 and 8, Jesus tells us that if we say long prayers and useless repetitions God will not listen to us any better. He already knows our needs so no need for such things.

One of the shortest prayers would be "Lord save me". This is what Peter said in Mathew (14:30) after he walked on water. He got distracted by the wind and waves, and started to sink. He yelled “Lord Save Me!”

You can have a silent prayer also. You don't need to say anything because God is all-knowing, he knows what is in your mind.

Why do we pray?
We pray because we believe that God will listen and help us. Prayer and faith go hand in hand. If we have no faith in God, then praying is useless.

When should we pray ?
Ideally, we should pray in both good as well as bad times. Sadly, some pray only in a crisis, and others forget to offer a prayer of thanksgiving when God has helped to solve a problem or provide a blessing.

When you look inside the Bible, you can see how people pray and under what circumstances. 3 examples come to my mind:

1. Moses (Exodus 17:11)
"As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning."

Usually when we pray we fold our hands, we stand or bow down on our knees. Here Moses had to raise his hands as he was praying for his people to defeat the enemy.This was not an easy task as Moses'hands were getting weak.So Aaron and Hur helped to support his hands at that time.

2. Daniel (Daniel 6)
This is an example that Prayer must sometimes be done at dangerous and life threathening times.

Daniel was an administrator under King Darius. The other administrators were jealous of Daniel because he was not corrupt and trustworthy. They made Darius issue a decree that noone was allowed to pray to any God other than Darius.

Daniel faced real danger in praying, but kept on praying, even though it led to the lion's den. But Because Daniel had trusted God and continued praying, God protected him from the lions.


3. Parable on Prayer (Luke 18:1-8) The persistent widow & the Judge

A widow kept coming to a judge asking him to give her protection from her opponent.The judge was initially not willing to help her but the widow was persistent. Finally the judge agreed to help the widow.

This parable of the persistent widow teaches us that we should be patient, persistent, and persevering in our prayer.
In our lives, we often lose heart in praying if there are delays in answers to our requests. Jesus uses this parable to teach us that, though answers often appear to take a long time in coming, we should persevere and not grow weary in praying to God.

God hears and answers our prayers. Maybe not always at the time and in the way we want, but at the time and in the manner that's right according to God.