If you've been helped, then help us help others like you.

Donate to MySpiritualAdvisor.com by clicking the "Donate Button"

How do I respond to God? Prayer, what is it? And, how do I pray?

Go To Article Highlights
Have you ever greeted someone and before you could finish your "hello" they said, "Good. And you?" What is even more maddening is that they are off to another subject before they have even acknowledged your existence.

Don’t be frustrated, God puts up with this all of the time.

We have been on this journey the last month and we now need to start to respond to God. And we do that through prayer. And prayer is a thoughtful and deliberate conversation with God. In the first week of our progress we made time to have silence and meditate on God wanting us to be in relationship with him. This is concentrated listening which you have already been doing.

Then we read how other people spoke to God. You have done this with reading the Psalms.

Now we need to pray. We do this by using what we have learned and adding something new, our own petitions (or requests).

Prayer is doing those first two steps, listening and reading how others prayed, and then we speak. We can speak silently in our hearts or out loud with our lips.

There are several orders for prayer to help us. And depending upon who you are, how creative you want to be and how much time you have, there are many forms from which to choose. We will go over The Lord's Prayer in the Continuation and one  more in "Dig Deeper".

Briefly, use the Lord’s Prayer as your guide. It starts with prayers for God’s kingdom and then moves to prayers that bring us closer to others, and finally there are prayers for ourselves. And we should begin our prayer with, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit..." and then pray.  Explanations for all of this are in Dig Deeper.

If you don't have a Bible, click here pastormark@myspiritualadvisor.com

Article Highlights

Dig Deeper

Praying in the name of god

Jesus Christ said that we should baptize in "the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  Why would we do that?  And then why would we use this formula to start and end our prayer time?

Surely, you know that if you call someone for a job interview and are referred by someone they know, you are more likely to get results.  You say, "Cortland Starrett told me to call you."  And because he knows Cortland Starrett and knows he is a real good judge of character, the man on the other end of the phone is more likely to invite you in for an interview.

The Scriptural understanding of doing things "in the name" of someone comes from the sending of messengers when they had a message from a King.  They would go from one kingdom to another and stop and say, "I come in the name of the King..."  There was and is power in a name.

We pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit because to 'get spiritual' is to know God who is a Spirit.  And "Father, Son and Holy Spirit " is his name.  So, to pray in this name is to appropriate the power, character, spirit and devotion of God.  This appropriation of God's name gives us more upon which to rely than just ourselves when we start our prayer.  It is shifting ourselves into the mystical, spiritual, reality of eternity.

'Getting Spiritual' means we are looking to enter the presence, power and excitement of being in relationship with the Spirit who is God.  Considering that God is the one who created the complex universe with a simple spoken Word, we can trust that his name has power and mysterious depth.  And we enter this mysterious power do that by starting our prayer time with 'In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.'

Another Form of Prayer: The Collect

The "Collect" is not a collection.  It is a form of prayer.

The Collect basically 'collects' the theme of the service, the week, the person praying or the occasion of the Mass/worship service.  Here is the Collect for the Second Week of Easter in the Book of Common Prayer and The Liturgy of the Hours.

The Book of Common Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Liturgy of the Hours

God of mercy, you wash away our sins in water, you give us new birth in the Spirit, and redeem us in the blood of Christ.  As we celebrate Christ's resurrection increase our awareness of these blessings, and renew your gift of life within us.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

These prayers have a basic form:

1. Address to God    "Almighty and everlasting God..." or "God of mercy..."

2. Characteristic of God    "who in the Paschal mystery..." or "you wash away..."           (Something God has done)

3.  The petition (or request) "Grant that all who..." or "increase our awareness..."

4. The hoped for result    "that all who have been..." or "renew your gifts..."

5. Final praise of God    "through...who lives and reigns....Amen."

I will post on the site the work of anyone who wants to try to write a Collect.*  You can start simple if you want, but I encourage you to give it a try.

For other books that address prayer, see the Books page.