What is a Prayer

P rayer - Most commonly known as conversations with God. To petition of solicit help from supernatural being, or To humbly beg a person for help or aid or their time or just an occasion to talk to God.
“a Prayer to the Lord” or Adoration or contrition or most importantly a form of thanks giving.

What does prayer mean to you?

As I began my search, I have never questioned the existence why we need to pray. I guess this is because I have known it all my life. I grew , I breathe with prayers. As far as I can remember , I was very young and i had a habit of peeking at my great granny’s room, that rosy scent i couldn't resist every time i pass by her room. There she sits on a culumpio as we call it( a rocking chair) with candles lighted on the altar. As I try to snoop again on what she was doing, She had a thick book on her lap (bible) and the long wooden rosary beads hanging from her left hand.

To me it was one of the magical moment when I see her face so intensely detached to the world. Her soulful eyes glued to the image of Christ while she sits and murmuring spanish prayers which I didn’t quite understand at that time.

As far as I can remember, My grandma Conchita was more of a dictator when it comes to praying, and it was unlikely that her mother which was born on some Spanish/Japanese era was more understanding or should I say more subjective when it comes to praying. To think she was born and raised in a very conservative family.

There was something about her that was so special that even the protestant and the Mormons in our neighborhood respected her and had seek her council every time they were in distress or in trouble.

In short, My great Grandma wants us to discover on our own why prayer is indeed important and showing us the value of it through silent gestures and practices, to be always consistent of the teaching and putting it all in action , she was therefore teaching us even when she remained silent and meek.

This didn’t sink in to me but just a few years ago , when I began to recall the history of my family.

Why my family was so different from the families I have known and why Prayer was so connected to loving. It was an important factor to us.
Having been born in a Catholic family , Praying has played a big part of our life's celebration. It is an occasion for all of us to be together. Somehow, I realize it is something that actually bonded us , molded us as a family especially on those trying times. I just couldn't explain the real mystical factor of praying. Just recently our family has again witnessed the power of sincere , unselfish motives of praying that saved a life of loved one. Every time i remember this incident. I just fill up the my bucket with so much gratefulness , another witness to a promise.

Prayers are not answered right away, God is so hard to understand sometimes but how can we doubt when the very existence od our being is because of God.

As I continue to define the meaning of praying , this is the most simple meaning that I have come up.

Straight from my heart's definition:
Prayer is the place of admitting our NEED,and adopting humility even when it’s the hardest thing to do, and claiming DEPENDENCE upon GOD. The perfect time to be intimate with GOD.

One authour says: "God isn't like an giant aspirin: Take God three times a day and you won't feel any pain"

Well, In my point of view, It isn’t that we do not experience pain anymore. How can one NOT experience pain especially when we begin to be human again and when we love?
So how should we pray? We live in a fallen, sinful world and we know that God does not promise to give us everything we want or to keep us from all suffering. In fact, the Bible tells us, "In this world you will have tribulation."¹
So effective prayer is not a lucky charm to gain special favors. Neither is it a painkiller like a giant aspirin: "Take God three times a day and you won't feel any pain!" as John Powell put it. But even though we can't always get the answer we want at the moment we want it, God wants His children to communicate our desires to Him. "Prayer is communicating our heart to God."

So how does prayer grow INTO you and me? It does. How ? Examine yourself:

Do you have patience? , do you have Prudence?, Justice? Temperance? Courage? Faith?, Hope? And most of all Genuine love? Note, I added the word “genuine” because a lot of people lip service love, ( because it’s easy to say and it makes them look good when they say it)

Ok before I digress, let me just ask you this? If you have those virtues working on your daily life then prayers are helping you achieve it. Slowly transforming you and letting God work on you.
This may even take a life time process but then how will you be able to explain the strength of the lives of the saints and maryrs? What was common on their daily task ? What makes them strong? What sets them apart from all of us? What sets them apart from the non believers? it IS the

CONSTANT SUPPLY of
COURAGE to LOVE!

1Peter 4:12:

"Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing." And verse 19 says: "Let those who suffer ... entrust their souls to a faithful Creator. . ."

James 5:13: "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray."

As one of the book of Thomas Greens’s “When the well runs dry” and "Opening to God." He mentioned about the books of St. Teresa of Avila ( Union with God )and the “ The Cloud of Unknowing” by an anonymous english monk .The books of St. John the Cross," Dark nights of the soul"

These books speaks of a deeper faith and how prayers has played a big part of the transformation of the the heart. When one is able to get it without further explanation and knowledge of the world.

" Opening to God "

Epilogue

"The image I often use is that of a father and his year-old child. The baby has learned how to crawl, and become a very skilled crawler. Then one day the father decides to carry the baby for a walk. Suddenly the baby sees the world from the father's shoulders and moves with the speed of his father's speed. When they return home, the father puts the baby down on the floor again, and the baby is frustrated because he can only crawl. Now he knows something better is possible, and crawling is no longer satisfying.

It is like that in the early stages of our life in prayer. When we begin to make progress, it is not because we have learned to walk, but because God is carrying us. Like the baby, however, we tend to think we have really accomplished something ourselves.

Prayer becomes a joy and our faults disappear, and we think we have really learnt to walk, but the reality is that our faults have not been eliminated, but merely temporarily masked by God's grace. And when he sets us down again, prayer becomes difficult, and our failings return, and we find ourselves frustrated."

The Cloud of Unknowing :

"Our intense need to understand will always be a powerful stumbling block to our attempts to reach God in simple love [...] and must always be overcome. For if you do not overcome this need to understand, it will undermine your quest. It will replace the darkness which you have pierced to reach God with clear images of something which, however good, however beautiful, however Godlike, is not God."

"And so I urge you, go after experience rather than knowledge. On account of pride, knowledge may often deceive you, but this gentle, loving affection will not deceive you. Knowledge tends to breed conceit, but love builds. Knowledge is full of labor, but love, full of rest."

Finding this book has been one of my best searches: ( Thank you)

Beginners do not quite understand it, I was once a beginner, still consider myself a neophyte but moving up to another level which I didn’t understand. It was a phase when I felt God wasn’t listening. God is hiding or I felt I was being punished for the sins I have done and he suddenly he stop listening…

For many years, until now .still searching but the biggest consolation is consolation itself…, Prayer is subjective and mystical, You can never describe it to another individual who has not experience it or somehow not craved for it. No explanation would ever be enough. It was well describe as Prayer is truly a mystery in ( Gabriel Marcel’s sense : Something we can not objectify and view from a distance because it is intensely personal and it involves our whole selves)and thus can be described as in a totally personal and subjective way .

Honestly , I continue on my ramblings but I just couldn’t explain that inner beauty of joy and when I found this book “ When The Well Runs Dry” How I wish I had read this years and years ago…but then I am starting to complain on wasted time of searching and finding nothing that satisfy the void within me and reading some useless books which only confirms that my thirst was ON for something more lasting, more loving , bluntly speaking to me to "never lose trust and just try and keep on trying" …I can not even contain the emotion that i feel when I realize how other people had been missing SO much when they try to resist THAT moment with God. God is never compromising and God is God, God chooses the time and just perfect timing.

The Books mentioned above made me realize that everything I have gone through has also been felt by an individual whom I call a well experience man of praye and was never free of struggle just as like myself. He has devoted most of his years praying and knowing God even when the well runs dry. It is also teaching the value of rest and Letting go by trusting God before any human promises. God uses human beings on A very enigmatic way so it makes it natural to the human eye but NOT on the human heart. JUST AN AMAZING FEELING OF BLESSEDNESS!

Reading the book of St. Teresa of Avila, made me love her all the more for explaining to me the journeys of knowing God through prayers, A truly humbling experience , how I wish I can be able to share to you the feeling of greatness upon how God sends you answer when you needed it and Knowing this good souls whom God had chosen to share HIS wisdom and had the ability to write their experiences transforming it into a witnessing faith, and inspiration for beginners like me , who is slowly moving up to a deeper level.

The answer did not come over night. It came almost 5 years of searching , the unquenched thirst for it. Unceasingly knocking night after night. Despair to desolation to consolation to renewal and change of heart.

But it was all worth the wait. I am now going to embark myself to a new learning …new phase of loving and knowing my creator.

Somehow, knowing all these has made me a bit scared in a way( human nature sets in again) because I know this involves responsibility and God is preparing me for something great, Not necessary a road less bumpy but the “ consistency of being brave to love and see Him even on the darkest hour of my soul.” I continue the search while I experience what Thomas Green is describing , but you know…things aren’t that scary as it use to be. The feeling of doom is somehow described as the dark side who wants to creep in from time to time because you are not guarded and the only way to be guarded is to be ever vigilant of your faith. "Praying" helps you store up inner goodness and light during times of weakness and temptations.

One of my fellow searcher had even mentioned that christianity needs prayer only to have something to hang on. Well the good news is We need something to hang onto. Praying doesn't teach us to lie or to curse our fellow human being, It infact teaches us to humble ourselves to NEED GOD other than that the purpose of prayer is not really praying but just a self centered prayer of asking. One needs to understand that prayer is all about communication to GOD. One of my greatest wisdom found on it is - always pray for TRUTH.

The truth can be scary even but nothing is a substitute to the Honesty on praying.

Whenever I have a problem, I try to acknowledge the problem but also ask God to show me the root cause and then help me do what I need to do to resolve it. Since most of our problems are the fruit of a deeper root, the presenting problem can often be a misleading symptom that avoids our real problem.
Sometimes I don't want to see the truth since it might be frightening or embarrassing so I tell God that I am willing to be made willing to see it—whatever it might be.

Whenever I have prayed this way, I have always had this prayer answered. Sometimes the answer comes quickly, other times slowly. takes even years and years, It usually depends on when I am ready to receive it.

I will try to talk about more about that spiritual tepidity I have experienced as soon as my emotion settles in.

Right now , I am in deeper inner joy of knowing and still pondering on the unknowing. I feel blessed.

How can you not LOVE AND FORGIVE?

Another Insight from Anthony DeStefano.

I thought of sharing this to many of my friends:

WHY DOESN'T GOD ANSWER MY PRAYER?

God doesn't always give us what we want, but there are some prayers God always say "yes" to

All over the world right now, people are asking the question: "why doesn't God answer me when I cry out to Him? How can we reconcile the idea of God who says " Ask , and it shall be given to you" With the fact that this same God often refuses to grant what we desire most?

There are requests God always say no to, no matter how earnestly we pray. For example, If a person wants to embezzle money from his job or commit adultery with a co-worker, God is not going to give any assistance. ( that doesn't mean the person who wants to pursue these things won't be successful anyway. God has given us the awesome gift of free choice, and that includes choice to do terrible things.)

Then there are the prayers God says no to for reasons that are not so obvious. There is an old expression that says, " God gives us what we need and not what we want" God is concerned about only our ULTIMATE good, which boils down to whether or not we make it to heaven. When we ask God to grant us something, He says yes or no based on what that decision. We we, and the people who are affected by us, be more likely to go to heaven or not?

But if God gives is only what we need and what is good for our spiritual growth, It follows thatthere are certain prayers God always says yes to! All one has to do is to look to the Bible, the writings of Christian theologians over the centuries, and the testimonies of thousands of people right now whose prayers are being answered. God loves to say yes to us. Not only to "small" prayers but to big , practical, and profound ones as well.

It's often the hardest to understand why God doesn't answer prayers that no necessarily sinful in nature: Why didn't God cure my mother's cancer? Why doesn't He get me a raise so i can pay my bills? Why doesn't He send me a boyfriend? Why did He make my son autistic?

God's will is inscrutable and to an extent we have to accept that BUT our suffering can sometimes be part of God's plan for us. That's why " God, please bring some good out of this bad situation." is one of the most powerful prayers in the universe.-- and that God always say yes to-- but it's also one of the toughest to pray. ( This could mean a total submittance and to him no matter what)

When were right in the middle of suffering, it's hard to calmly consider all the wonderful things that might lie in store for us in the future, That's why cliches like " look at the bright side" can be off putting.

But the expressions like these don't usually become cliches unless there is some truth to them Somewhere along the line, people noticed that bad things can give away good thing or even lead to them.

At it's corre, the question of how to transform suffering into happiness is a religious one. Ultimately, It is God alone who has the power to bring good out of bad.

TO be continued...