Prayer

[shrewsbury]

This came up in another thread, so I thought I would carry it over to here.

what is your idea of prayer?
what is it for?
where do you do it?
how often do you pray?
what do you pray about?
what do you not pray about?


I tell my students that your time spent with me and in class is very small in comparison to how mush time you have. even if you go to class 4 days a week and 3 hours at a time, it is still less than 8% of your time. the real practice and study comes outside of class, in your daily life.

This is how I view prayer, it is not something you do at a certain time, but it is something you always do. but prayer to me is not about asking for anything, but rather acknowledging, respecting, appreciating, and being with God. I do not have to summons anything up, be in a special costume, so any magical words, God is within and without me, I only need to acknowledge that and I am in touch with Him, so to speak.

With all this being said, I can also state the fact I have seen others who pray in a certain way and for certain things, and I have experienced this working in ways I never thought possible and still deny that pray can work for some people, or so it seems, maybe a weird coincidence, but nonetheless very thought provoking

[mrveggieman]

I believe that prayer is a personal matter between you and God therefore you should speak to him in a way that is comfortable for you. If it is means praying in either Jesus of Mohammed's name or neither one of that that is between you and your God. Just liked what worked between me and my earthly father when he was alive may not have worked for others what you works for you and your earthly father may not work for me or others. I just really hate when self rightous people tell others who are trying to reach out to God that there prayers are invalid because they didn't add a whole bunch of extras, they didn't pray during the right time of the day, face the right direction or wear the right clothes. Does anyone actually believe that God will ignore a sincere prayer because of a trivial technicality?