The Lord’s Prayer will be the topic of May’s newsletter and blogs. But before I address what is, arguably, the most recognized prayer in the world, I’d like to briefly discuss what prayer is, why we pray and the different types of prayer.
What is prayer?
Prayer is a personal and/or solemn act of communication between you and the God of your understanding.
Why would you pray?
The reason is to enhance your relationship; to grow it. Think of the relationships you have in the world. The less you communicate, the more the relationship dissipates. The more earnestly you communicate, the more the relationship grows. If you’re looking to improve your conscious contact with the God of your understanding, why wouldn’t you pray?
What’s the motivation for prayer?
Do we pray because we want something, or do we pray to acknowledge, respond and share our love with God?
Think of communicating with someone you love dearly…your wife, children, parent(s) or friends.
Imagine that each time you talk to them, you’re constantly asking for something? What do you think that relationship would be like?
Think of a child who is new to this world. They are always asking for something in some form or another, right? They need to be taken care of completely. And as a parent you do it out of love; always giving of yourself, never asking that baby what’s in it for you…right?
Well, God is the same way with us. If we want that relationship to be one of always just asking and being needy, God is our all loving parent. She will rock us in Her arms as we cry and complain. He will provide us our daily bread and substance of life…to the highest good of all. If that is the level of relationship we have with God, that’s fine. God Loves Us, unconditionally, no matter what type/level of relationship we have with Him/Her.
I think if you are reading this blog, you are out of the infant relationship stage and, hopefully, out of the terrible teenage stage (angry, resentful or just in denial about God in general) and now are residing in that place of wanting to improve your conscious contact with God.
If so, think of what type of relationship you want develop? Go deep within and ask yourself. Think of the different types of relationships there are in this world, for example, child-parent (dependent), friend, teacher, parent-child (respectful-wanting to please) or lover. Which of these would you want to develop? And as these develop, they might or might not evolve into another type of relationship.
Next week, I’ll touch on the different types of prayer.
Thank you.
Namaste,
Michael
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