Journey into Insight Chapter 9

Chapter 9

PRAYER

'....they suppose they will be heard for their many words.' (Matt. 6:7)

'God is a spirit, and those who worship Him, must worship in spirit and in truth.' (John 4:24)

Prayer plays a vital role in our developing an intimate personal relationship with God. It does not consist of the art of stringing words together, but is more an attitude or a frame of mind in which verbal communication is only a part. When Christ was asked by his disciples to teach them to pray, he gave them an example (Matt. 6:9) which we have come to know as 'The Lord's Prayer'. This prayer represents the desired orientation of our hearts and minds rather than a prescribed formula of words. Let us examine some of its meaning line by line:

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father,

We think of you in a familiar and personal way. You are close to us and are the origin of our lives. You are 'our' father and we see one another as equally your children.

Who art in heaven,

You represent our ideal of perfection and happiness.

hallowed be Thy name.

We respect your reputation and admire your genius.

Thy kingdom come.

We share your values and seek the benefits of your order.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We want to think and live your way. We are working to put your ideals into practice here.

Give us this day our daily bread,

Give us the nourishment we really need.

And forgive us our trespasses

Don't hold our failings against us; let us keep trying.

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

We hold no resentment against others, and we let them make a fresh start also.

Lead us not into temptation,

Don't put us to a test for we recognise our weaknesses. Lead us away from opportunities that ought to be resisted.

But deliver us from evil.

We depend on your protection and care, and on your help in making the changes needed in us.

From this example, it is clear that the real purpose of prayer is to develop a meaningful relationship with God and to orient ourselves towards what we ought to be pursuing in the best interests of all, including ourselves. While Christ also encouraged us to ask God for what we want, we should accept His decisions. This is a matter of wisdom. God respects our freedom and values our individuality, and His love for us implies that what we want, is also important to Him. However, we need to recognise that unlike us, He has a comprehensive view of the whole picture.

What prayer requires is total sincerity, that is, complete openness and honesty with ourselves and with the Almighty, in thought, words and actions. Preferably, the words we use are entirely our own and can say anything we may wish to at the time. Ideally, talking with God should come easily, but first our lives must be connected to Him so that our words have mutual relevance. Like all good communication, it is largely dependent on the relationship being high enough in our order of priorities.

Listening To God

God communicates with us in several ways. He might bring us together with something or someone who can enlighten us, or He may speak to us more directly through our ideas and intuition. However, to 'hear' Him, we must become sensitive at the deepest levels of our being. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ taught us, 'Happy are the clean of heart, for they shall see God' (Matt. 5:8). We cannot receive messages in their clearest form when our sensitivity is dulled by abuse, and our receptors are cluttered with distractions and obstacles or tuned to competing interests. So it is with seeing and hearing God with our innermost selves. We must clean ourselves within, and place His values at the centre of our lives.

Meditation and Awareness Building Techniques

In the Christian tradition, meditation is regarded as very helpful to prayer. Meditation can be practised within almost any religion and by people who profess no religion at all. Its broader purpose is to promote personal and cosmic awareness, insight and healing; however, there can be no standard expectation, and the outcome depends largely on the person's reason for doing it. Most techniques of inducing the meditative state, involve focusing the attention with the aim of achieving equanimity, and within this state new avenues to enlightenment can be explored.

In a way, anything that brings about greater self knowledge is, at least indirectly, an aid to prayer. Thus one may include the more scientific approaches to self discovery associated with psychology and related fields. At least initially, any technique should be practised under the guidance of one who has expertise in its use, for like tools of any kind, some of them can be harmful and dangerous if inappropriately applied. The value of any given technique depends on whether it suits the individual, and none of them may be regarded as generally superior to any other, or indispensable to the practice of Christianity. It is also not possible to conclude that a person who has had a certain experience or used a given technique, is necessarily more 'in touch' with himself or with the Almighty than one who has not.

Closeness to God

It is true that God will never allow us into any parts of His realm unless it is mutually safe and beneficial. However, that is nothing unusual. We are not permitted to enter an operating theatre without complying with obvious levels of hygiene nor should we be allowed to work with dangerous equipment without evidence of competence. In fact before we became mature enough our access to many things was limited, but this did not isolate us from our parents' love, and it was most probably their sincere hope that someday they would be able to entrust us with more. God wants to be close to us, and prefers us to be on familiar terms with Him. Like an ideal parent or friend, He always wants to help us develop. If we offend Him, He is always ready to forgive.

God is everywhere, even within us if we want Him to be. In this respect He will always accept us the way we are at the time, as long as we want to make genuine progress. To be close, all we need is trust and complete honesty with ourselves and with Him (Read Luke 18:10-14).