I have been praying since i was a little kid. It used to be the way u do it in your heart, eyes closed, thanking Lord for everything He did for u in your life, praying for others, and praying for the future. Just the plain simple way of doing it.
But soon i realised there is a beautiful way of praying and its not just limited to the pastors or to the elders, the art of praying is a beautiful gift from the Lord too.(i believe so)
Yes, i believe Holy Spirit helps us to pray, pray the way Jesus told us to, pray the way its pleasing to the Father in heaven. There is no set pattern to praying, but there is something different that we christians do, its just heart touching. I feel so blessed around someone who prays so earnestly, so honestly that you could feel the presence of the Lord.
Praying to the Father in His son Jesus's name, giving him glory for all of His work, praying for His protection to stay over His children, asking for guidance in our lives, praying for salvation of ur near and dear ones, worshiping Him, and the list goes on and on. When we pray to Him we should mean everything we say. (sometimes we just mumble away n give thanks to the Lord for the day(um yeaa.. i do too dat somtymz :-| ).
No matter how much you feel happy praying in the church, you always need to have that alone time with the Lord (m nt the best judge at it.. cuz lets say.. i still fall short of many things which i need to improve). The Bible also told us that Jesus liked to have His own time to pray to the Father. His one of the best place to pray was the mount of olives, where he used to go at night or early in the morning to have a time of fellowship with the Lord in prayer. This teaches us something, we arent here to pray to show to the world that "oh look at me.. m praying, m such a saint" , we need not show it to the world.. all we need is to let the Father know that we do want to have a time of fellowship with Him and want our relationship grow with Him.
Prayer always brings peace to one's soul. Yes there are times when situations just make it difficult for us to have faith and pray, but still try to pray even if it takes two minutes but do it, because i feel somehow those two minutes would eventually help you to have an everlasting faith in the future. It is very easy to give into temptation, but to fight against it is difficult, yet it can be made easy if we have faith and continue to pray for His guidance and support.
There is lot to be about the art of praying.. which i feel i havnt touched upon at all, lets just say i would build on that thought a little later. In the mean time, I still am praying to the Lord to help me know "art of praying" perfectly.
