What - Prayer is defined as "a devout petition to God, or an object of worship" on dictionary.com, "an invocation or act that seeks to to activate rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication" by wikipedia, which breaks my third rule of definition: don't use words that would need to be looked up when defining a word, but is a much fuller definition. In Scripture the word Prayer, Pray and Praying are used a combined 439 times in the Bible. Which is a statistic I've never understood the value of. Sure, when comparing particular author's word usages I get it, but not just intro-ing a sermon on a topic and rattling off its usage stats and various Greek & Hebrew modes. Nonetheless, despite only appearing 439 times, prayer is a very important topic in the Bible. There's no recorded instance of God pulling aside Adam, Noah, Abraham or any other Patriarchal figure and explaining to them how to talk to Him. The word prayer first appears in 2 Sam but I think its safe to assume the practice had been going on since the beginning of time itself. Of course, the "Lord's Prayer" story is the most commonly used template to teach how to pray and is also relates Christ teaching His disciples. However, do you think the disciples really didn't know how to pray? When they asked Christ to teach them, was it out of total ignorance in the process? These are Jews, they've been watching and participating in prayers their whole lives. They were asking for special guidance, not start-up instruction. Christ prayed differently because Christ was speaking to His Father within perfect harmony of His will.
My definition of prayer:
The intentional and sometimes audible presentation of praise, information and requests with expected results from the created to the Creator.
When - Paul tells us to "pray without ceasing" or "pray constantly." I've heard it preached that in a perfect world we could sit on our knees and talk to God all day. That's dumb. God is eternally long suffering so we can't annoy Him per se, but He created and saved us for a reason and as far as I can tell, it wasn't to sit on our knees all day. Maybe the Muslims are on to something here. Just like Daniel, they have set times to gather and pray. This is good and a lot of Christians I know are similar, just less public (which is recommended in the Sermon on the Mount) but it doesn't quite fit into "without ceasing." I don't think I'm going to blow anybody's mind by saying Paul is talking about maintaining a close, sharing, open communication channel between God and ourselves at all times. Does this mean we don't have to bless our meals? Yes. Is it a good practice to do it anyway? Of course it is. But my mom saying "You're going to choke on that because you ate it before we prayed" is frankly ridiculous. In fact, suggesting we can't start anything without "praying first" suggests we weren't praying to begin with, which misses the point entirely. Praying for ritual's sake cheapens the act. Prayer should be spontaneous, legitimate and passionate. However, I think we should also have public prayer before ballgames, meetings, meals and the Sunday morning offering. But public prayer is a different beast altogether than personal prayer, I'll explain more as we go.
Where - If we are praying "without ceasing" then everywhere. There are some recommendations though. The parable of the Publican and the Sinner shows that a prayer's legitimacy is dependent on the heart not the performance. This concept is attached to the corollary that requests made known to God in secret are fulfilled in the open. Meaning relying on God alone in our prayer lives will strengthen our faith more, make us more like Christ (who prayed alone on numerous occasions) and promises results.
Side note - teaching "how to get prayers answered" is borderline blasphemous. God is not a tool to be used or a daddy figure to be manipulated. Take care
Why - Everything we do should be to the Glory of God, correct? So prayer fits into that same category. In the case of public prayer, a benediction or invocation at the beginning or end of an event symbolizes God's presence there, His power over the proceedings and the utter dependence on Him of the participants. This is beneficial for all in attendance and I believe "beneficial" to God in that it gives Him glory or as we've mentioned before, demonstrates His glory fuller.
Side note - If you think Ben Franklin's request to open the Constitutional Congress session with prayer is evidence of his faith, consider these facts. 1 - Franklin was a well-documented Deist who believed God had no or little interest in the affairs of men and 2 - the task facing the members of that Congress was enormous to say the least. I believe Franklin was showing his hand regarding prayer and throwing up what was in his mind the most desperate "Hail Mary" (pun intended) he could think of. I suggested as much my sophomore year in "Early American Political Thought" and the prof, who has since retired, about burned me at the stake. oh well.
In regards to personal prayer. The benefits for an individual frequently praying are clear - a closer relationship to God, there are more chances to repent so sins have less of chance to fester, constant prayer means Christ-like thinking more often which wards off sins to begin with, a more direct connection can be made between requests and results which increases faith, the transforming power of the Holy Ghost which works through direct contact with the Divine (this occurs only 2 ways: prayer and the reading/meditation of Scripture), etc.
How - as I said before, "how to pray in order to get results" is a false teaching. Christ lays out a template in the Lord's Prayer, the Saxon Paraphrase goes like this:
Heavenly Father, the Almighty God,
may your perfect will be accomplished,
You've promised to provide and as You know I need ________, thank You for Your provision.
Forgive me for ______ and help me to forgive ________ for __________, thank You for You forgiveness. Protect me from myself and the darkness of this World, thank You for Your protection. In the name of the Christ, the Supreme King Jesus, Amen.
Braves have won only 13 of their last 36 on the road. They dropped yesterday's in extras to the Royals. This 3 games series is their first ever at Kauffman stadium, one of 2 active stadiums Chipper Jones never played in. They did win game 1 however, Jason Heyward blasting off in a big way with 3 rbis and a big fly. As the All-Star game approaches here are my picks for the starters, always a bunch of tough picks:
NL
C - YMolina 1B - FFreeman 2B - MCarpenter SS - TTulowitzki (hurt but deserving) 3B - DWright
LF - JUpton CF - SChoo RF - CBeltran
Bench - JVotto, PGoldschmidt, YPuig, BHarper, ACraig, CGonzalez, JSegura (start), CGomez, BPosey
SP - AWainwright
AL
C - CSantana 1B - CDavis 2B - RCano SS - JJHardy 3B - MCabrera DH - PFielder
LF - AGordon CF - AJones RF - NCruz
Bench - NMarkakis, JLowrie, YCespedes, JMauer, MNapoli, JEllsbury, VMartinez, JBautista
SP - MScherzer
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