What's prayer about anyway?
Maybe you pray regularly, maybe you've never prayed before... here are our answers to some common questions about prayer.
Why pray?
Many religions around the world encourage people to pray. As Christians, we pray because:
- we believe God is interested in us and our lives and wants to communicate with us and help us,
- we believe it changes things for us and for those we pray for,
- Jesus our Christian role model and saviour prayed - lots! - and encouraged his followers to pray, he even gave them lessons and a template prayer to use,
- we see the difference prayer makes in our lives, in the lives of others and in the world around us.
Who should I pray to?
Christians pray to God: Father, Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit.
- We pray to God the Father because he created everything that exists and holds everything together, he is the ultimate parent - someone who loves us and wants to help us grow into the best people we can be.
- We pray to Jesus, both God and God's son. Jesus was born, lived and died like us, so he is uniquely able to understand what we go through in our lives. He is a bit like the best older brother, sticking up for us, taking the blame if we've messed up, helping us out when we struggle, and celebrating with us when things go well.
- We pray with the Holy Spirit. Christians believe the Holy Spirit helps us to communicate with God - by prompting our thoughts, sometimes in giving us pictures as well as words. When we 'tune in' to the Holy Spirit, it is as though our prayers have more energy, and we experience God more clearly.
What if I'm not a Christian?
We believe God made and cares for everyone and everything, and that he just genuinely loves it when we talk with him. You don't have to be a Christian to pray, you don't have to subscribe or register, there are no login details or passwords to remember. We think praying is great but if you decide it's not for you, you can 'unsubscribe' at any time and God won't pester you with loads of unwanted 'spam', trying to get your attention.
It can be intimidating meeting someone you don't know very well - What should I wear? Will they think I'm weird? Will we find things to talk about? Sometimes if we haven't called or seen a friend or relative for a long time we worry that it will be awkward if we get in touch. There's no denying these things are true, but God is very good at putting us at our ease, like it was only yesterday we last chatted. So although we might feel self-conscious to start with, it's worth persevering.
What should I pray about?
Honestly - you can pray about anything, anywhere, anytime. God doesn't sleep or put the prayer line on silent. He never gets bored with us pestering him with questions, requests or things that have happened that we want to share.
If you want to talk to God about what colour socks to put on when you get up in the morning - that's okay. If you want to talk to him about something terrible that has happened to you or someone you care about that's okay too. Nothing you can say is too trivial for God to be interested in, nothing you can say is to shocking for him to cope with.
- We pray for ourselves - our hopes and fears, things that have gone well, mistakes we've made.
- We pray for our friends and family and people we care about.
- We pray for complete strangers, or events happening around us in the world that we are worried about, or where we wish we could help, but just don't see how we could make a difference.
- We listen - the more we get to know God as we pray, the more we find we want to listen to what God is saying to us: how much he loves us, that we are forgiven, or that maybe if we do something he might use our actions to bring about change in a situation.
Will God answer my prayer?
Yes - but maybe not how you expected. It's a bit like God has a giant universe-sized jigsaw, and your prayer is just one piece of the puzzle. You can only see your piece, you can't see the whole picture that God is making. Sometimes God will take your prayer and fit it in place straight away, but sometimes your jigsaw piece might not fit where you thought it should (maybe it was a bit of sea, not a bit of sky!), or maybe not enough of the jigsaw is done yet, but it will fit in time. Why not try another prayer - another jigsaw piece, see where it fits? Don't give up - keep offering God pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and see how the picture begins to build.
Image by: Scouten, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
