How To Pray ~ What Prayer Is ~ How I Pray
by
H. Kent Craig



      The opposite of love is not hate but indifference. The opposite of prayer is not blasphemy but pride.

     Every single day of my life, I pray several times a day, and try to make every moment of my life an act of prayer. I am human, Lord knows I am human and I fail every day to make every moment of the life that has been given me an act of prayer, but my Lord knows that I do try.

     An on-going conversation with God is not an act of prayer. A self-initiated dialogue with God is an act of spiritual masturbation, basically harmless, useful as a means of releasing tension within one's soul, but in the end usually moot to both the attempting penitent and to God.

     A request or begging to and of and for God for this or that to happen or not to happen is not prayer. A solicitation of favors from The Big Guy is usually amusing to Him when a pray-ee does so, but is so sadly self-delusional that you would actually think that simply by asking Him you can get God to play Santa Claus or Mafia hitman or Wall Street banker or fairy godmother and is definitely not prayer.

     An attempt at contrition in His eyes or asking of forgiveness from God for this or that real or imagined sin or transgression is not an act of prayer. Sometimes it's close, but since such a petition for forgiveness usually originates from a sense of shame or guilt which are the coin-opposite-sides of envy and pride and pride and envy are sins and of themselves, one can't be forgiven for the flipside of sin-coins that one has stolen from His treasury and then spent.

     God does listen to all prayers, even "wrong" ones and badly done ones and ones done for the most malicious and hateful as well as generous and benevolent of reasons and motivations, He truly does listen to them all because we are His children and He is a kind and patient and loving Father. He is often smilingly-tickled at our juvenile attempts to get His attention and favors, but that's why He calls us and we are indeed His children, not His adults, and He loves all the more for trying to change and grow up and eventually become One with Him.

     Prayer can be a multitude of correct things done for properly correct reasons and motivations but above all else, prayer should be an act of humility and submission to God and His divine will. As human beings, we can never truly know the mind or the heart of God, but if we truly humble ourselves to Him and submit ourselves to His "grand will", then yes, He will hear not our requests or complaints or petty jealousies or large grievances but will accept into His heart our truly on-bended-knees expressions of our love for Him.

     When I pray my several to sometimes tens or even hundreds of times prayer ever day, I pray one simple four-word prayer: "Thy will be done". This encompasses everything that I feel in my heart of hearts for Him, from the darkest corner of my deepest doubts and fears that I myself and what I do or not will or will not be pleasing to Him in His eyes, to the grandest of my courages and selfless nobilities that I would gladly literally sacrifice my own life rather than ever deny Him.

     Only He can and does know what is in my heart or your heart or the hearts of all souls within the universe He created because He first loved us as He loved us enough to send His one and only truly begotten Son to come and suffer and die for our sins, so that we do not have to suffer the eternal damnation not of a physical place called Hell but the living, breathing tortuous never-ending Hell of denying ourselves the saving grace of the love our Father has for us.

     It is only by true humble submission to the grand design and purpose of His will that we can be ever be saved from the Hell of denial of His love, and it is only by the act of first forgiving and loving ourselves and then asking God for His forgiveness can our hearts be cleansed and opened up enough to receive the divine gift of His true love for us.

     For that is what prayer ultimately is, His vehicle for us built in to our human natures that gives us the chance and choice but not the compulsion or requirement since all true love from us to Him must be made from our own individual exercise of our free will agencies or it's not authentic and if it's not really from our heart of hearts then it's not truly a gift of love from us to Him, prayer being a small attempt to show love for our mutual Father that He chose to create us and give us His gift not just of temporary physical life on this planet but of potentially, if we truly love ourselves and all of our brother and sister souls as we love ourselves, of potentially life everlasting, after we learn what lessons we need to learn here and then leave to go home to be with Father in His mansions.



    {Back To Deeply Personal & Misc. Page}     {Feedback}