Prayer
This is our standard medium of communing with God. It is also
the act and medium of communicating one's mind and will to the
spirituals. More than anything it is our primary means of
drawing living and appropriate grace from God. Through it we
communicate for instance, our desire to be filled with the Holy
Spirit. It keeps our hearts in tune with God and keeps us
dependent on Him. It is probably the first and foremost
expression of the fact of our utter weakness and of our faith in
His ability to keep us. Through it we are kept supplied freshly
spiritual strength for each day.
Prayer could be either formal or informal. By formal I mean
preplanned in terms of time, place, content, and form. This is
very important to a healthy experience of Christ. No one can
enjoy continually the living and transforming presence of Christ
who has no regular scheduled time and place of communion with God
in prayer. Informal prayer on the other hand is spontaneous, it
arises from sudden needs or blessings. When, for instance,
you are suddenly in need of God's deliverance, you don't
schedule a time or place for asking, neither do you even
consider the form of your prayer such as whether to kneel down
or stand up, you cry out in the spur of the moment. Thanks be to
God for accepting both. In fact, each has its place and time for
a balanced Christian living. None should be preferred over or be
used to nullify the other, they are complementary. However,
formal prayer is primary and therefore should be most
cultivated.
Prayer should be practiced continually to keep our lives plugged
to Heaven's stream of resource, and as it is evident that this
cannot be achieved through formal prayer, the place of informal
prayer becomes apparent, except we do nothing else all our
lives. Pray in the morning, pray in the day, pray at night, pray
at all times. Saying prayers here and there, underneath our
breath or within our hearts, no matter how little or short, does
an indispensable deal of good for our Christian walk. The power
in informal prayer is not to be underestimated at all. For
instance, There happens times when you cannot pray formal
prayers, either due to weakness or helplessness, or even lack of
chance. At such times it benefits to remember that God is not
bound to formal prayers. In truth, we are the ones benefited by
our formality not God. His most important concerns are our faith
and passion.
Pray without ceasing! I Thess. 5: 17.
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