The gift of Personal Prayer

Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire? -Corrie Ten Boom

Over the years, some of the world’s most historical figures have stated their ideas and definitions about what prayer means to them. Some of them are as below:

“Prayer is a strong wall and fortress of the church; it is a goodly Christian weapon”- Martin Luther

 “Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness” -Mahatma Ghandi

 “For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God”- St. Teresa

The word “prayer” comes from the Latin word Precari, which simply means to entreat or ask. Most of us, believe that the primary function of a prayer is to perhaps ask God for something, but when properly understood, Prayer is much bigger than this. To pray is to have a conversation with God. Just as we cannot hold a conversation with another person unless they can hear us, the very act of praying is an implicit recognition of the presence of God with us. In praying, we strengthen that recognition of the presence of God, which draws us closer to Him.

Not many of us realize how important personal prayer is. I only just discovered the gift of personal prayer a few months back. Up until then, I barely know how easy it was to pray-imagine unwinding to your very best friend at the end of a very tiring day- this is exactly what prayer is all about- being yourself in the presence of the God that created you.

Jesus, himself was a strong believer in personal prayer. There are so many instances in the Bible, where we see Jesus praying to his Heavenly Father alone. If Jesus, being the son of the most Divine God prayed so regularly, how much more important is personal prayer in our own lives?

Very often we see Jesus withdrawing from his disciples and the crowds to be alone to pray- He would always choose lonely places where he could spend time with his Father (Refer to Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:35,Luke 5:16). Though group prayer, or praying with a community is powerful too, there should always be a need to pray alone. It is in these most silent moments we spend with God, that we can truly hear God speak to us in the silence of our hearts.

Observing the life of Jesus, we see that every minute of Jesus’ life was a prayer. The beginning of Jesus' ministry on earth was begun with prayer through the Baptism of Jesus. It was whilst he was praying, that the Heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in a bodily form like a dove (Refer to Luke 3:21-22). Looking at the deeper meaning behind this, we can see how Jesus prayed first before he took an important step in his life, and it just goes to show us that we too need to pray and ask for Gods guidance before we make decisions in our life, especially since our life is a gift from God. Another example of this is when Jesus spent the full night in prayer before he choose his twelve disciples (Refer to Luke 6:12).

Like Jesus, let’s strive to make every minute of our lives a prayer. Take time to pray on your own. Personal prayer time with God, is by far, the best time ever!

Olivia Pereira

HSI Media

Olivia.hsimt@gmail.com