What is prayer?
At the lowest level, prayer can be a mere shopping list of requests to God. A conversation with God dominated by desires for all the things we don’t have and yet desperately think we need. A bit like a child at the window of the toy shop; no longer aware of the huge collection of toys at home he can only stare in dire longing for those toys he does not have.
When work challenges, testing relationships, or daily difficulties arise our shopping list becomes pruned. It becomes focused on these priorities of life without which we feel our happiness is threatened.
When disaster strikes, loss of health, or loved ones, our agony makes our prayers into cries from the heart to God. Urgent calls for aid against impossible odds. When we can find no way forward or no hope, then our prayer becomes a desperate plea for assistance.
Of course, it can be hard to know to whom we pray when our understanding of God is so very limited. Sometimes we have only vague thoughts of one greater than anything that we can mentally encompass. That is why using prayers from those who have gained true closeness to God or His chosen Ones can be so helpful. Not only do their words and aspirations tend to remind us of what is worth asking for but they also have a greater understanding of God.
For example, the Lord’s prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
begins by reminding us that God resides in the spiritual world, heaven, that He is our father and that we should revere His name.
thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
This is followed by the promise that His kingdom will be established on earth in the same way it is in the spiritual realms. The words indicate that this present civilisation will become more divine in nature. Humanity will acquire spiritual qualities and virtues and civilisation will be transformed from this present turbulent adolescent stage into a more spiritually enlightened state.
After reminding us of who we are talking to, reassuring us of the future direction or vision of mankind there follows three pleas.
Give us this day our daily bread;
The first is that we be provided with the basic material necessities of life to survive.
and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;
The second asks God to pardon our sins or transgressions. Those deeds, words, and thoughts which deprive us of our spiritual progress. Interestingly, the prayer links our forgiveness from God with the degree to which we forgive those who have done us wrong or sinned against us.
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
The third plea, following on from repenting from all that we have done wrong in the past and present, asks for protection from future failings, sins, or transgressions. It ends with a cry that we will be freed from evil and all that takes us further from God’s will.
Amen.
So many spiritual writings and devotionals end with Amen, like the Lord’s Prayer, so it is worth remembering its meaning.
The basic meaning of the Semitic root from which it is derived is “firm,” “fixed,” or “sure,” and the related Hebrew verb also means “to be reliable” and “to be trusted.” The Greek Old Testament usually translates amen as “so be it”; in the English Bible it has frequently been rendered as “verily,” or “truly.”
Prayer, we learn is both an inner reflection; to be grateful for the blessings each day brings, awareness of what wrongs we have committed, how important it is to forgive others and brings to mind a concern for our future actions and failings, as well as an external call; a recognition of the station of the Divine, obedience to His Will and recognition that obedience to God’s will befits us all both in this world and the next. It reminds us of a higher standard to which we are all called to attain and its vision of the future helps fuel our endeavours to build a better world.
