Sometimes in this column I speak of prayer and how it helps to reinforce our relationship with God and with God’s Son Jesus, and as I was thinking about prayer this week I wondered - how do we learn to pray?
Jesus’ disciples must have pondered the same question as they saw Jesus pray.
What does he say, how does he pray, how does he begin and end his prayers?
For my part, I was taught to pray by my grandmother.
She had me and my cousins pray at the same time on Saturday night before bed, and before we were to get up to go to church the next day.
The prayers were the same - that God would bless our families that God would keep us in faith, and then, at the end, the Lord’s Prayer.
That was the prayer that Jesus gave the disciples when they asked, “teach us to pray”.
The Lord’s Prayer was not something made up by people to make them feel good, it was, and is today, the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples when they asked how to pray, and it is the prayer that is given to us, even today, as we pray.
Of course, we have more things to use in our prayers.
Prayer is not a formal occasion; it is chat, like chatting to a friend.
We might thank God for the day we have had, we might ask for strength in the days to come, we might ask for forgiveness when we may have turned our back on God, or we might ask for healing for a friend.
The thing about prayer is that it is part of the relationship we have with God.
Some relationships go for a long time without conversation, but can I assure you of this - God is ready to listen to our prayer.
And for those days when we have nothing to say, what could be better than the words that Jesus himself gives us?
~ Contributed by Fr Tim Fogo from St Paul’s Anglican Church, on behalf of the Combined Churches of Deniliquin.
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