What is the point in praying?

  • Thread starter Thread starter CRATUS
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

CRATUS

Guest
This whole everything is the will of God - reminds me why pray. God already decides what will or will not happen. How does prayer really do anything? I feel most of life is simply accepting who you are and what happens to you.
 
I couldn’t define prayer any better than the Little Flower did.

Prayer is, for me, an outburst from the heart; it is a simple glance darted upwards to Heaven; it is a cry of gratitude and of love in the midst of trial as in the midst of joy! In a word, it is something exalted, supernatural, which dilates the soul and unites it to God. Sometimes when I find myself, spiritually, in dryness so great that I cannot produce a single good thought, I recite very slowly a Pater or an Ave Maria; these prayers alone console me, they suffice, they nourish my soul.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, Chapter 10

​

I hope this helps. God bless you.
 
For me, praying is not about asking for things, but about opening myself up to God’s love and letting it flow through me, uniting myself to Him. It is such a joyous, intense experience, I would be praying all day if I didn’t have anything else to do. Being so intimate with Him, receiving all that love, makes me want to be a better person, to share that love with others, and try to bring other people to know Him.
CRATUS said:
This whole everything is the will of God - reminds me why pray. God already decides what will or will not happen. How does prayer really do anything? I feel most of life is simply accepting who you are and what happens to you.
Click to expand...
 
Praying is an act of love from you to God. The point of praying is to let God know that you want Him, love Him, thinking about Him, and that you seek Him.

In one of St. Francis of Assisi’s events, if I remember correctly, Christ appeared to him and St Francis was calling out to Him, but Jesús kept walking as if He was ignoring Francis, and so Francis kept calling Him and walking towards Him, until…I don’t remember what happened but it was something about Christ telling Francis that he loves when he calls out to Him (He was walking away on purpose to see what would Francis do).
 
In a sense you’re right; God doesn’t need our prayers. But that doesn’t mean it’s useless to pray, because God has conditioned some events on the agency of his rational beings. If we don’t pray, true, the universe will go on, and it will all be God’s will in the widest sense (that which he causes or permits), but it would not be his will in the stricter sense of what he has enjoined upon his rational creatures, which includes prayer. And the universe will be different because we pray: not because it must be so, but because God made it that way.
 
I do want to say, though, that I have prayed for help from God and He answered my prayer and helped me. Kind of amazing (to me) that He can be bothered to intervene directly in our lives!

is-anybody-reading-this.blogspot.com/2015/12/my-journey-to-god-and-catholic-church.html
Ad_Orientem said:
In a sense you’re right; God doesn’t need our prayers. But that doesn’t mean it’s useless to pray, because God has conditioned some events on the agency of his rational beings. If we don’t pray, true, the universe will go on, and it will all be God’s will in the widest sense (that which he causes or permits), but it would not be his will in the stricter sense of what he has enjoined upon his rational creatures, which includes prayer. And the universe will be different because we pray: not because it must be so, but because God made it that way.
Click to expand...
 
I think that a good answer to this is found in one of the appendices of C.S. Lewis’ book ‘Miracles’ (which I highly recommend). In the appendix he notes:
“When we are praying about the result, say, of a battle or a medical consultation, the thought will often cross our minds that (if only we knew it) the event is already decided one way or the other. I believe this to be no good reason for ceasing our prayers. The event certainly has been decided, in a sense it was decided ‘before all worlds’. But one of the things taken into account in deciding it, and therefore one of the things that really cause it to happen, may be this very prayer that we are now offering.”

Lewis touches on other aspects of prayer that people usually find difficult. Like, if we can pray for God to prevent something that has already happened (for example, can we pray for God to heal someone we know to be dead?) Lewis contends that we cannot, since our knowledge of the situation makes it “psychologically impossible to pray for what we know to be unobtainable”.
 
CRATUS said:
This whole everything is the will of God - reminds me why pray. God already decides what will or will not happen. How does prayer really do anything? I feel most of life is simply accepting who you are and what happens to you.
Click to expand...
Prayer helps you to better understand the will of God. Not my will but Thy will be done.
 
We can pray for physical healing, and at the same time, if God doesn’t grant us the healing, that He will grant us the grace to accept it and offer it up to Him in union with His suffering on the cross.

There is always reason to pray and go before Him with humility.
 
It’s a conversation.
What’s the point in conversing with someone you love?
Or who loves you?
What’s the point?
YOU answer. Only YOU can answer this.
Either you love Christ, or you think it’s a waste of time.
I don’t really believe that you think it’s a waste of time, but many people don’t’ believe their prayers are heard, or that they’re doing it right, even.

Do it. Pray. Ask, plead, thank, praise, express love.
How can one get to know someone without communication?
Do you just stand back and stare at someone you want to spend eternity with?
No.

Pray. It’s as much for you as it is for HIM.
It’s Christmas Eve.
Start the conversation. See if it doesn’t just work out beautifully.

May the Child Jesus hold out His holy hand to you, and may you take it tenderly in yours.
 
There is prayer of Adoration to adore God, to tell Him you admire Him.

There is prayer of Thanksgiving to thank God for being who He Is and for the many blessings He pours out.

There is prayer of Petition where we ask God to grant us some good.

Ultimately the whole point of prayer is not to change the will of God but to bring our will into conformity to God’s so that His will becomes ours. Once our will has become fully aligned to God’s then our whole life can become prayer.
 
What is important about prayer is to recognize that we are really children of our Father … not just creatures made from nothing and a mere part of this universe.

When He looks upon us he sees the reflection of his only begotten Son whom he has loved from all eternity. There is nothing to describe the Father’s love for his Son. And his love for us falls into this category and anything that is of importance to us is important to Him as his family.

In prayer we are conversing with our Father … our real Father … not a make believe Father. St. Paul too was amazed at his close relationship to God when he said the word ABBA, Father. It seems to shock him and yet he was thrilled by it.

And so our prayer is loved by our Father, no matter what that might be because we are his family … children. And because of this association of being born into this heavenly family, our prayers are indeed strong and will be satisfied if at all possible.

When we pray for the world, that really means a great deal to our Father, or our prayer for someone who is in pain … truly is honored by our Father.

If we forget this relationship, or have a weak conviction of it, or don’t think of it at all, then our prayer loses much of it’s strength since we are basing it on being mere creatures and not the love of a real child for his real Father.

When we say the prayer of the Our Father, it is important to address Him as such, while honoring and loving him as well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top