- What is the purpose of prayer and how can we pray effectively?
The Bible Dictionary gives us this information
on what the purpose of prayer is:
As soon as we learn the true relationship in
which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His
children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our
part (Matt. 7:7–11). Many of the so-called difficulties about
prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by
which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought
into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to
change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others
blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made
conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or
effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of
work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all
blessings.
There are many passages in the New Testament
that teach the duty of prayer (Matt. 7:7; 26:41; Luke 18:1; 21:36;
Eph. 6:18; Philip. 4:6; Col. 4:2; 1 Thes. 5:17, 25; 1 Tim. 2:1, 8).
Christians are taught to pray in Christ’s name (John 14:13–14;
15:7, 16; 16:23–24). We pray in Christ’s name when our mind is
the mind of Christ, and our wishes the wishes of Christ—when His
words abide in us (John 15:7). We then ask for things it is possible
for God to grant. Many prayers remain unanswered because they are not
in Christ’s name at all; they in no way represent His mind but
spring out of the selfishness of man’s heart.
(https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/prayer?lang=eng&letter=p)
Marion G. Romney explained the purpose of
prayer in a talk he gave in general conference in April 1978:
The purpose of prayer, however, is not to
appease a vindictive Deity; nor is it to court favors from an
indulgent Father. It is to attune oneself with the spirit or light
which “proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the
immensity of space.” (D&C 88:12.) In that light is to be found
sure answers to all our needs.
Prayer is the key which unlocks the door and
lets Christ into our lives.
“Behold,” said He, “I stand at the door,
and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come
in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Rev. 3:20.)
(https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1978/04/prayer-and-revelation?lang=eng)
In an article on the lds.org website, church
member Celeste Davis described how she has learned to pray
effectively:
What are those things it is possible for God to
grant? How could I make sure my wishes are the wishes of Christ?
To figure this out, I drew a little diagram: my
desires on the left, God’s on the right, and things we both want in
the middle.
I came up with a little formula to help me in
my prayers. It is simply this—whenever you ask for something you
want and you’re not totally sure if it’s something God wants for
you, tack on the phrase “but if not” and then add something
you’re sure God would want for you.
Mary Jane Woodger is an associate professor of
church history and doctrine who wrote an article published in the
Ensign about how she has learned to pray effectively. She focuses on
the following – prepare for prayer, remember that God loves you,
express sincere gratitude, pray fervently, pray in specifics, and
pray aloud.
(https://www.lds.org/ensign/2006/12/what-i-have-learned-about-mighty-prayer?lang=eng)
Kersten Campbell is a church member who wrote
an article published in the Ensign about how she has learned to pray
effectively. She wrote the following:
. . . I was listening to “O Holy Night” in
my bedroom. As I pondered the Savior and His mission, the music
penetrated my heart. A feeling of joy and gratitude washed over me as
I thought of the Savior’s love and His great Atonement. I got on my
knees and uttered a simple prayer of thanksgiving, with the hope that
I could become more like Him. As a gentle warmth and happiness
enveloped my heart, heaven felt very near, and the Spirit helped me
to understand that this is what it meant to have mighty prayer.
. . . I understood the difference between . . .
“mighty” prayers and all the others. It was the Spirit. In
[mighty] . . . prayers, the Holy Ghost was present and taught my
heart and mind what to say so that my will was in line with the will
of my Heavenly Father. The Spirit had helped to make my prayers
mighty.
Since then I have tried hard to invite the
Spirit into my heart before, during, and after prayer. Sometimes it
comes through reading the scriptures, sometimes through listening to
good music, pondering my blessings, or thinking about the Savior.
Sometimes just a humble heart with a strong intent to follow through
will bring the Spirit. Other ways I have prepared for prayer are by
serving others, praying for others, or even just asking for the
Spirit to be present. Though not every prayer is like the two I have
described above, I have felt much closer to my Heavenly Father and,
over time, have received more personal revelation than ever before.
Inviting the Spirit into my prayers helps me to
feel like I regularly have real two-way communication with my Father
in Heaven. I am able to better understand His will for me when the
Holy Ghost is there teaching it to me.
(https://www.lds.org/new-era/2011/12/what-is-mighty-prayer?lang=eng)
Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy wrote the
following in an Ensign article about prayer:
Prayer is powerful and compelling evidence of
the reality of God the Eternal Father. Personal prayer is
indispensable to understanding God and our divine identity.
Prayer is less about changing our circumstances
and more about changing us. It is about seeking His will and asking
for His help to do what we need to do.
(https://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/06/improving-your-personal-prayers?lang=eng)
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Priest in the
Catholic Church, described prayer this way in his book The Naked
Now (p. 101-103):
The traditional and most universal word to
describe a different access to truth was simply “to pray about
something.” But that lovely word “prayer” has been so deadened
by pious use and misuse that we now have to describe this different
mental attitude with new words. I am going to introduce a different
word here, so you can perceive prayer in a fresh way, and perhaps
appreciate what we mean by contemplation. The word is “resonance.”
Prayer is actually setting out a tuning fork. All you can really do
in the spiritual life is get tuned to receive the always present
message. Once you are tuned, you will receive, and it has nothing to
do with worthiness or the group you belong to, but only inner
resonance and a capacity for mutuality. (Matthew 7:7-11) The Sender
is absolutely and always present and broadcasting; the only change is
with the receiver station.
Prayer is indeed the way to make contact with
God/Ultimate Reality, but it is not an attempt to change God’s mind
about us or about events. Such attempts are what the secularists
make fun of – and rightly so. It is primarily about changing our
mind so that things like infinity, mystery, and forgiveness can
resound within us. The small mind cannot see Great Things because
the two are on two different frequencies or channels, as it were.
The Big Mind can know big things, but we must change channels. Like
will know like.
Without prayer, the best you can do is know by
comparison, calculation, and from the limited viewpoint of “you.”
Prayer, as very traditionally understood, knows reality in a totally
different way. Instead of presenting a guarded self to the moment,
true prayer stops defending or promoting its ideas and feelings, lets
go of any antagonistic attitudes or fears, and waits for, expects,
and receives guidance from Another. It offers itself “nakedly”
to the now . . . Now you surely see why you have to allow some major
surgery in your own heart, mind, and eyes to even pray at all. (see
Matthew 5:23-26) Prayer is about changing you, not about changing
God.
Most simply put, as we’ve seen, prayer is
something that happens to you, (Romans 8:26-27), much more than
anything you privately do. It is an allowing of the Big Self more
than an assertion of the small self. Eventually you will find
yourself preferring to say, “Prayer happened, and I was there”
more than “I prayed today.” All you know is that you are being
led, being guided, being loved, being used, being prayed through –
and you are no longer in the driver’s seat. God stops being an
object of attention like any other object in the world, and becomes
at some level your own “I am.” You start knowing through, with,
and in Somebody Else. Your little “I Am” becomes “We Are.”
Please trust me on this. It might be the most important thing I am
saying in this book.
Notice how he said prayer is like resonance.
What is resonance? In the church we use the phrases “tune in” and
“attune”, which have nearly identical meanings to “resonance”.
Watch this video on resonance –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxRkOQmzLgo
– and then contemplate how prayer is like resonance.
Marvin J. Ashton of the Quorum of the Twelve
said:
Our Heavenly Father loves each of us. We are
his children. He wants us to return to him. It is the adversary’s
purpose to deter us from a course that leads to happiness and eternal
life. Knowing that, our Heavenly Father ordained prayer as a means by
which we could always keep in contact with him and not become a
stranger to him. We will know with total assurance that he is there
and that misuse of free agency on our part is not a prayer-motivated
conduct pattern.
If we know he is there, that he loves us, and
is our advocate, why do we pray? Individuals pray for different
reasons, but the primary purpose of our prayers is to attune
ourselves to our Heavenly Father so that we can receive light and
truth. It is light and truth that enables us to forsake the evil one.
(https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/marvin-j-ashton_know-2/)
President Howard Hunter said:
There is nothing more helpful than prayer to
open our understanding of the scriptures. Through prayer we can
attune our minds to seek the answers to our searchings. The Lord
said: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Luke 11:9). Herein is
Christ’s reassurance that if we will ask, seek, and knock, the Holy
Spirit will guide our understanding if we are ready and eager to
receive.
(https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1979/10/reading-the-scriptures?lang=eng)
Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve
spoke at a BYU devotional in which he expanded on how Psalm 37
contains instructions on how to prepare to pray and then how to pray
effectively. He said:
In Psalm 37 David revealed an inspired process
for active prayer and faith. It is a step-by-step process that may
serve as a pattern for us to follow as we seek to increase our faith
and improve the efficacy of our prayers.
“Fret not” is the first step (verse 1).
Fret means to worry or to brood about something. The first thing we
must do is stop worrying. When we worry about the future, we create
unhappiness in the present.
The second step is to “trust in the Lord”
(verse 3). Why should we trust in Him? Because He is our loving and
all-wise Father in Heaven. Because He is the giver of all good gifts.
Because He knows us and wants us to be happy, successful, and to
return to Him. God is in His heaven. He is perfect. He loves us.
The third step is “do good” (Psalm 37:3).
We do good because we are followers of Christ. We do good because we
are members of His church. We do good because we have made solemn
covenants to serve as a light unto the world. Our Heavenly Father
expects our actions to serve as a living testimony to our words. As
we do good, the Lord can bless our efforts.
The fourth step is to “delight thyself also
in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4). What a wonderful doctrine! Instead of
worrying or grumbling that our prayers have gone unanswered, we
should delight ourselves in the Lord. Be grateful. Be happy. Know
that the Lord, in His time, will bring about all your righteous
desires—sometimes in ways we predict, sometimes in ways we could
not have possibly foreseen. What a wonderful recipe for happiness and
peace.
The fifth step is to “commit thy way unto the
Lord” (verse 5). No matter what your worries are, commit yourself
to keeping His commandments. Brethren, honor your priesthood.
Sisters, cleave unto the principles of light and truth.
The sixth step is to “rest in the Lord”
(verse 7). Sometimes the hardest thing we can do is wait. The Lord
has His own timetable, and, although it may frustrate us, His timing
is always perfect. When we rest in the Lord, we allow Him to work His
will for us in His own time and in His own way.
Rich blessings are promised to those who pray
in this manner: “So shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou
shalt be fed” (verse 3). The Lord “shall give thee the desires of
thine heart” (verse 4). “He shall bring it to pass” (verse 5).
“And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy
judgment as the noonday” (verse 7).
Prayer is the way we commune with the Infinite.
It is a time of gratitude, a time of introspection, a time of
emotion: sorrow, joy, enlightenment, and peace.
The more time we spend in righteous prayer, the
more our beings will be filled with light. “And if your eye be
single to my glory,” the Lord has promised, “your whole bodies
shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you;
and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things”
(D&C 88:67).
The more our souls are filled with light, the
more we become like our Father in Heaven and the more we are capable
of feeling the fruits of the Spirit. This light grows within us,
often slowly. It banishes the darkness of this mortality. It sets to
flight fear and doubt and all desire to do evil. It fills the soul
with love, peace, and unspeakable joy.
The challenge of this mortality is to come out
of the darkness into the light. Through prayer, the light of the
Spirit can distill upon us line upon line, precept upon precept,
until, as Brigham Young taught, the Holy Spirit “opens the vision
of the mind, unlocks the treasures of wisdom, and [we] begin to
understand the things of God” (JD 1:241).
The things of God can only be understood by the
Spirit of God. The Apostle Paul taught, “The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto
him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
In the Book of Mormon we learn again and again
of people who fell away from the light and embraced darkness.
“Because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of
God; and their hearts were hardened” (Mosiah 26:3).
As we commune with our Father in humble prayer,
our hearts receive the gentle outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Lord
tells us, “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth
light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light
groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day” (D&C
50:24).
My brothers and sisters, such spiritual
experiences are available to all who come before their Eternal Father
with a broken heart and contrite spirit. One of the things we must do
in this mortality is chase away the darkness. We must fill our souls
with the light of the Holy Spirit.
As we approach our Heavenly Father in the name
of Christ, we open the windows of heaven. We can receive from Him
truth, light, and knowledge.
Prayer is the doorway through which we commence
our discipleship to things heavenly and eternal. We will never be
alone so long as we know how to pray.
Other passages of scripture that describe
processes for getting into the right frame of mind to receive
revelation include 2 Nephi 4:15-35, 3 Nephi 12:19 (19-45) and D&C
98:1-3.
President Joseph F. Smith explained how feeling
and desire are important components of prayer:
I pray that you will know how to approach God
in prayer. It is not such a difficult thing to learn how to pray. It
is not the words we use particularly that constitute prayer. Prayer
does not consist of words, altogether. True, faithful, earnest prayer
consists more in the feeling that rises from the heart and from the
inward desire of our spirits to supplicate the Lord in humility and
in faith, that we may receive his blessings. It matters not how
simple the words may be, if our desires are genuine and we come
before the Lord with a broken heart and contrite spirit to ask him
for that which we need.
(https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-f-smith/chapter-3?lang=eng)
President David O. McKay explained how prayer
is less about the words we use and more about the heart and the
spirit:
Prayer is the pulsation of a yearning, loving
heart in tune with the Infinite. It is a message of the soul sent
directly to a loving Father. The language is not mere words but
spirit vibration.
(https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-david-o-mckay/chapter-8?lang=eng,
http://www.inspirationalstories.com/quotes/t/david-oman-mckay/page/3/)
Donald Perry, a professor of Hebrew Bible at
BYU, compiled several short statements from church leaders on what
prayer is, which were published in a Book of Mormon commentary:
Prayer is the goal of an individual to place
him or herself in spiritual harmony with God the Father and Creator
of all. According to latter-day prophets and apostles, prayer
consists of much more than directing “mere words” or thoughts
towards deity, but represents “the pulsation of a yearning, loving
heart in tune with the Infinite.” Prayer is “a message of the
soul sent directly to a loving Father. . . [it is] spirit vibration”
(McKay 308). Prayer is having “a consciousness that there is
something within us which is divine, which is part of the Infinite,
which is the offspring of God, and until we can feel that harmony
with that Infinite, we have not sensed the power of prayer” (302).
Prayer, accompanied by works, “is the invisible switch to tune us
with the infinite” (Kimball 62), it is placing ourselves “in
harmony with divine forces” (Widtsoe, “The Articles of Faith”
288), it is attuning ourselves “with the spirit or light which
‘proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of
space’ (D&C 88:12). In that light is to be found sure answers
to all our needs” (Romney, “Prayer and Revelation” 50).
Further, “prayer is the passport to spiritual power” (Kimball
115). To “live without prayer is to live a mere animal existence.
It is to leave the best part of our natures in a starving condition;
for without prayer the spirit is starved, and men dwindle in their
feelings and die in their faith” (Cannon 2:170).
(https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/book-mormon-3-nephi-9-30-my-gospel/9-pray-always-learning-pray-jesus-prayed)
Donald Perry also wrote an article that was
published in the Ensign where he described how to pray with all our
hearts:
The Book of Mormon shows us that Jesus Christ
prayed with great power and emotion; he wept as he prayed unto the
Father over the little Nephite children, and his prayer was a prelude
to the ministration of angels (see 3 Ne. 17:21–24). We, too, should
try to pray with all the spiritual power we possess and with all the
feeling of our hearts. It has been said that “prayer is made up of
heart throbs and the righteous yearnings of the soul.” A prayer is
not effective unless the individual prays with “real intent of
heart” (Moro. 7:9), with “all the energy of heart” (Moro.
7:48), and “in the sincerity of his heart” (D&C 5:24).
As with all spiritual matters, the prayers of
the righteous can also be understood with the heart.
“And tongue cannot speak the words which
[Jesus] prayed, neither can be written by man the words which he
prayed.
“And the multitude did hear and do bear
record; and their hearts were open and they did understand in their
hearts the words which he prayed” (3 Ne. 19:31–33).
The Prophet Joseph Smith once said that “it
is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the
character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one
man converses with another.” ... individuals should converse with
Heavenly Father in the same direct, trusting, and sincere manner that
they converse with friends and family members. The Prophet Joseph
also said: “Be plain and simple and ask for what you want, just
like you would go to a neighbor and say, I want to borrow your horse
to go to mill.”
(https://www.lds.org/ensign/1996/01/after-this-manner-pray-ye?lang=eng)
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