{"id":6563,"date":"2020-07-14T21:16:03","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T11:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6563"},"modified":"2020-07-14T21:16:05","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T11:16:05","slug":"ponderings-on-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/ponderings-on-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"Ponderings on Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Ponderings on Prayer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original post by Fr Antonios Kaldas blog site<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Among the most direct ways to experience a loving\nunity with God is the practice of prayer. Put simply, prayer is dialogue<\/em> with God, the very food of an intimate\nrelationship with one\u2019s Creator and Saviour. Consider St Paul\u2019s quote to the\nGreeks at the Areopagus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 He is not far from\neach one of us; for in Him we\nlive and move and have our being\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acts 17:28<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The reality is that God is everywhere, and there is no\nplace we can go where we are away from Him. Prayer is the bringing to conscious\nawareness that presence of God. Most of our lives, we are so distracted by\nother things that we lose that awareness, we forget that \u201cGod is here!<\/em>\u201d\nIn prayer, we focus on restoring that awareness, on opening the \u201ceyes of our\nheart\u201d to see Him, and therefore on communicating with Him, with all the love\nand blessing that entails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the right time for prayer? It is always<\/em> the right time for prayer. If the\nunderstanding of prayer is correct, then when would one possibly not want to be\nunited with God? So, in fulfilment of St Paul\u2019s exhortation to \u201cpray without ceasing<\/em>\u201d (1 Thessalonians 5:17), the\nOrthodox Christian seeks to be in communication with God \u2013 aware of the\npresence of God with her \u2013 at every moment of the day. In this way, prayer does\nnot become an activity that is separate from the rest of life\u2019s activities. It\nis not that I leave my work to go to pray, and then I leave prayer to go back\nto work. Rather, I pray at all times, but it is just that at some times I leave\neverything else and focus on nothing but prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continual prayer may be practiced by reciting memorised prayers\nor Biblical verses, or it may just be a spontaneous \u2018chatting\u2019 with God in\none\u2019s mind, a sharing of one\u2019s thoughts with God. Brief prayers are sometimes\ncalled Arrow Prayers, for they are \u2018shot\u2019 up to God whenever one feels the\nurge. Many would also consider contemplating the beauty of nature a kind of\nprayer, for in doing so we are contemplating indirectly the beauty of the\nmaster Artist who created it. Even acts of kindness towards others may be\nconsidered a kind of prayer, for when I help you, it is as though I am helping\nChrist Himself, and so I touch Christ in the person I help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is important also to point out that there are some things\nthat prayer is not<\/em>, or at least,\nshould not be. Understanding these will help us to understand what prayer is<\/em> for the Coptic Orthodox Christian. For\nexample, prayer is not a mere duty to be performed. It seems unlikely that God\nmerely counts how many prayers a person prays, or for how long a person prays,\nand that is what impresses Him. What if those prayers are merely uttered with\nthe lips while the mind and the heart are far from God? Surely such prayers do\nnot fit the definition of prayer we have outlined? We cannot score \u2018brownie\npoints\u2019 with God by praying more. He knows all that is in our thoughts and\nhearts, so how can we possibly fool Him by pretending to be \u2018holier\u2019 than we\nreally are? Worse still, when a person prays for the wrong reasons, they will\nusually gravitate to a state where prayer becomes dry and routine. She prays\nonly because she feels she should pray, but the love has gone out of the\nexercise. This is an indication that there is something seriously wrong with\neither that person\u2019s practice of prayer, or with their whole relationship with\nGod, and spiritual guidance is needed to heal this illness of the spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor is prayer like a magic spell. It is not like\nsome incantation, where if I can only say it right, or with the right feeling\nin my heart, then God will give me whatever I ask for. In fact, Jesus reminded\nus that God already knows all that we need, and that He is more than capable of\ngranting us our needs, even before we ask, for He loves us. We cannot \u2018twist\nGod\u2019s arm\u2019 and in some way force Him to do something against His will. Nor\nshould we want to, for we believe that God is far wiser than we are, and we pray,\nas Jesus taught us to pray, for God\u2019s will to be done, not ours. Rather, when\nwe request something of God in prayer, it is not to tell Him something He\ndoesn\u2019t already know, but rather to share with Him our needs and desires, as\none might share one\u2019s deepest needs with a best friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is not to say that we should only pray when we \u2018feel like\nit\u2019. There are times when one is tempted to forget God, to put Him out of one\u2019s\nthoughts. At such times a certain level of self-coercion or self-control is\nneeded, just as self-control is needed to resist other types of temptations.\nWithin the human being are different desires at work, and often those desires\nconflict with each other. Our free will allows us to choose which of the\ndesires to encourage, but sometimes the opposite desires can be so strong that\neven that choice is not enough to overcome them. That is when we need to\nstruggle and strive against our human weakness, our fallen nature that would\ndrag us away from our continual and beautiful relationship of love with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original blog found at- http:\/\/www.frantonios.org.au\/2013\/06\/14\/ponderings-on-prayer\/#more-751<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ponderings on Prayer Original post by Fr Antonios Kaldas blog site Among the most direct ways to experience a loving unity with God is the practice of prayer. Put simply, prayer is dialogue with God, the very food of an intimate relationship with one\u2019s Creator and Saviour. Consider St Paul\u2019s quote to the Greeks at the Areopagus: … Continue reading “Ponderings on Prayer”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-6563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6566,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563\/revisions\/6566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}