The Beauty of Prayer

To pray is to intimately talk to God. Through our prayer we can worship God, ask for forgiveness and thank Him for all the graces we have received. Prayer is our way of communicating to God. By praying we can pour out to Him our hearts desire, may it be a request or concerns in life that we want to convey.

How should we pray? Jesus taught us how to pray in Luke 11:2-4 ”Jesus said to them, when you pray, say this: Father hollowed be your name, may your kingdom come, give us each day the kind of bread we need, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive all who do us wrong; and do not bring us to the test.” Said scripture shows a very simple but meaningful prayer that we may follow.

How about the best time and place to pray? Again we can follow Jesus example on it in Mark 1:35 ”Very early in the morning, before daylight, Jesus went off to a lonely place where he prayed.” Another scripture tell us that “…he went up the mountain by himself to pray, at nightfall, he was alone.(Matthew 14:23).” As for me, I pray after I wake up in the morning, late in the afternoon after I finished doing household chores (for my rosary and meditation on the mass readings for the day), around 9 pm for our family prayer (together with my children, am being a widow), before I sleep at night and in anytime of the day as concerns come by may it be during traffic and in long queue in the grocery or in any other situations.

But how can we know that God is listening and answering our prayers? God answers our prayers according to 1 John 5:14-15 “Through him we are fully confident that whatever we ask, according to his will, he will grant us. If we know that he hears us whenever we ask, we know that we already have what we asked of him.” Also in Isaiah 65:24“And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”… tells us that before we ask in prayer God already knows the desire of our hearts. By my experience God answers my prayers through His words in the Bible or through the cares or actions of another person. There are also times that God answers my request immediately no matter how simple the prayer it may be.

With that I can say that praying eases anxieties and worries. That’s the beauty of prayer you can unload your concerns to God and you can do it anytime and in any place. As long as you do it sincerely, you can never go wrong with prayer. May we be reminded what 1Thessalonians 5:17-18 says “pray without ceasing and give thanks to God at every moment. This is the will of God, your vocation as Christians.” (mimay: same as mama, a term of endearment to me by my kids. for your comments and suggestions you can email me at morobles71@yahoo.com) (Bing Orbeta-Robles)