A "class" on prayer...
At Cornerstone, our latest Stepping Stones Discipleship Training is on prayer. We met last evening and had a really good discussion. We started by trying to define prayer... tall order really. We often thing of prayer as "talking to God." That was where we started last night. The definition we ended up with was something like this:
Prayer is conversation with God in order to grow in our relationship with Him so that we might know His heart and His will, plan, and purpose for our lives.
Good stuff!!! Prayer is tough to define, but I am proud of the group for this great explanation. You can also read here for some more info about a life of prayer...
So what about you? How do you define prayer? Where is your struggle in prayer? What prayer tools have you found helpful? C'mon...sign in!
5 comments:
A definition we used in a seminary class was: "Prayer is a participation in the life of the Holy Trinity." A bit more technically theological and probably less practical than yours, but interesting.
My whole struggle with prayer comes from what I've been told about God's will. I often feel two things...1)God already knows what I want/need and will probably grant/deny it as he sees fit & 2)if I'm supposed to strive to comply with God's will, why bother asking for anything? Now, I know there is a basic problem here that it seems I only pray to ask for things. That's not so...I say prayers of thanksgiving a LOT. But as far as the type of prayer considered a petition prayer, I really struggle with it. Sounds pretty negative as I re-read this, but I was trying to keep it short. I think the church has really over-simplified prayer and that's OK with those who have the gift of Faith, but for us "thinkers" we need a little more guidance. I TOTALLY believe in the power of prayer, but I think it's very complicated.
After re-reading your post, I think the definition you came up with is a good one. My point was, I guess, that for some reason prayer doesn't seem to be something that you really dig into until you're well into your faith journey. The whole time we're young we are encouraged to pray, but are taught so little of what your group came up with. Then it's a bit of a jolt when you start dealing with bigger issues. Keith will tell you...don't get her started on the whole prayer thing!
Prayer includes the times when we cry out to God. But can prayer also be the waiting time after the cry? Prayer is when... P-People R-Readily A-Await Y-Yaweh's E-Excellent R-Reply (I love acronyms and made that one up myself.) What do you think?
Robyn...how true, on every point. We (the church) does a horrible job of equipping people to pray. We just assume everyone knows what prayer is: It's purpose, how we meet God in it, how to pray w/o ceasing, etc.
Jan...excellent! I'm going to hire you out for acronmyic sub-contracting!
Post a Comment