What is Prayer?
WHAT IS PRAYER?
A wonderful spiritual awakening took place in the Coimbatore Diocese.
Many people were fervent in prayer and some most unexpected things happened.
We realized that God is infinite in His love and willing to bless abundantly those who pray.
There were many problems.
Can we pray for worldly blessings or should we pray only for spiritual blessings?
Saints have spoken of the need for a pure love of God in prayer.
What does it mean?
Is it possible for all of us to pray that type of prayer?
Or is it possible only for saints?
How does God help?
In view of these and many other problems which I felt keenly, I devoted much time to the study and practice of prayer and taught that prayer to be full and rich must include all the five elements of Adoration, Confession, Petition, Intercession and Communion.
Lacking in any of these, prayer is incomplete and fragmentary.
_ Adoration:
The Psalmist sings: "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits'
(Psalm 103:1-2).
Whenever I read these verses I am reminded of my aged father who was constantly reciting them in the last years of his life.
He had the ailments and handicaps of old age.
His diet was strictly limited and for many meals he was allowed only liquid food.
He could not walk any great distance.
He had the usual worries and anxieties of a family man—bereavements, illnesses,. moral lapses in those for whom he was responsible, financial difficulties and so on.
But he was convinced that God had been very good to him during the seventy-nine years of his life.
God had blessed him in many ways and his lips were full of praise and thanksgiving.
That deeply religious teacher, Baron Von Hugel, taught us that Religion is Adoration.
We need to consider whether this is true and in what sense.
Not in the sense that Adoration alone is Religion.
The prophet Isaiah said: 'Learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow' (Isaiah 1:17). The Lord Jesus taught us to love God with
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all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.
He also taught us to love our neighbours as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-39).
These two commandments are equally important.
Religion is not only worship but also social action. The Prophets are as important as the Psalmists, in many ways even more important.
But there is a real sense in which Religion is Adoration. We need to dwell on God's glory, His might, His love, His mercy, particularly as shown on the Cross of Christ.
'The more we turn away from ourselves, the more we draw near to God, the deeper is our religion.
In other words, Religion is Adoration.
Religion is being aware of the reality of God, the majesty of God, the infinite love of God, man's entire dependence on God.
The conflict -between the urge for adoration on the one hand and social action on the other often takes strange forms.
One such conflict occurred in the life of Sundar Singh and the way he solved it was particularly significant.
He had the gift of healing and on more 'than one occasion realised it.
When he was in Colombo in 1918 he was asked to visit a hospital and pray for a boy who was ill.
He knew the parents well, and went to the hospital.
The boy was healed.
'This raised a serious problem in Sundar Singh's mind.
Was he to make Spiritual Healing an integral part of his ministry as many Evangelists have done, as the Lord Jesus has done?
Sundar Singh felt sure that his duty was not to practise this ministry.
He was anxious to preach.
He was prepared to spend hours in prayer and in contemplation, often passing into ecstasy and becoming oblivious of the world.
Some may question whether he did wisely in not exercising his gift as a spiritual healer.
It is not for us to judge.
According to the guidance of the Holy Spirit each man should express his love for God and man.
Confession:
H. A. Krishna Pillai was a learned Tamil Pandit who became a Christian in his thirtieth year after searching enquiry and keen mental struggle.
He longed to write a substantial book of Tamil Christian poetry which coming generations would treasure, telling the story of Christ and giving an account of Salvation as it is described in the Bible.
But when he came to sing about the Life of Christ, he found that he could devote only five hundred stanzas to it. He decided that all these stanzas should tell the story of the Holy Week fully. He, therefore, described the
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happenings during that week with deep and moving piety and shared with his readers his gratitude to God for the wonderful manifestation on the Cross of His love for mankind.
This vision of Christ on the Cross moves the poet again and again to confess his sins.
O Lord of grace, immense like a mountain peak of goodness!
Do thou forgive my sins!
When my spirit leaves the body Let me behold thy Divine face, radiant like the lotus,
Even on the cross on which thine enemies nailed thee.
And let my heart rejoice in thy sacred name.
Grant thou this boon to me, O Lord!
(Rakshanya Yatrikam, Vol. I, p. xxii. Tr. by A. J. Appasamy.) Petition:
In any normal human relationship there is both petition and communion. A boy goes to College and writes to his parents from time to time.
He tells them about his friends, his games, the books he reads and of his ideals and aspirations. When there is need he also asks them for money.
It is a very natural thing for him to do.
In ordinary human relationships there is a sharing of all our interests and experiences.
So in prayer.
God is our Father.
He cares for us supremely.
We place before Him all our needs and anxieties and He helps us as He thinks best.
'Give us this day our daily bread.'
This petition in our Lord's _ Prayer begs for God's gift to fulfil our physical needs.
Sometimes I am tempted to ask whether I should pray for simple wants like food and clothes. The teaching of Jesus here is however quite clear.
Intercession:
Intercession, we know, was a very important element in the prayer of Jesus.
In the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of St John we have an intercessory prayer which Jesus offered.
We find how earnestly He prayed for His own disciples and for others who came to Him through them.
He told Simon that he would pray for Him so that he might not fall.
Before the choice of His twelve disciples He spent a whole night in prayer.
There is no doubt that there was an essential connection between that whole night of prayer and the momentous choice which took place on the following day.
He probably not merely prayed for God's guidance so that He might choose the right
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disciples but also that they might give clear and powerful witness in the coming days.
Thus we know that intercession formed a very important part in the prayer-life of Jesus.
He said about Himself, 'For their sakes I sanctify myself'. He offered Himself up to God in order that He might be filled with God's love.
In the Western Ghats, dams have been built at Papanasam and empty valleys are being filled with water; electricity is generated; with this electricity houses and streets are lit; machines are run; water is raised from wells and taken to fields; and many other useful purposes are fulfilled.
The empty valleys are filled with water, not for their own sake but for the sake ot others.
In the same way we must seek the joy of God's Presence not for ourselves but for others.
Communion:
In the Bible we read that Job is a devout man and receives many blessings from God.
Satan contends that it is because of the worldly blessings which he receives that Job follows
God.
Take these blessings away from Job, Satan says, and he will cease to follow God.
So these blessings are taken away.
Then come numerous disasters and Job even curses the day of his birth, but finally he realizes that God must be worshipped for His own sake.
We must love God not for any material gifts which He may give us and even if suffering and trouble are the consequences of such love (Job 42:1-6).
We should love God for Himself without any thought of receiving any gifts from Him.
This is known as the pure love of God, that is, the love of God for Himself and apart from any thing He does for us.
There are four important reasons why this pure love may be regarded as the highest expression of our love for God.
God is greater than any gift He gives.
God gives us various gifts according to the stage of our spiritual development.
If our spiritual life is of an elementary type we are apt to place before God only petitions for health, success in life, the welfare of our family and so forth.
When we are in trouble we may ask God to help us.
At that stage we may not even think of others and their needs.
But as we advance in our spiritual life we pray for spiritual needs such as the forgiveness of sins, victory over sin and the capacity for spiritual helpfulness.
Even these may centre a good deal around our personal lives.
As we advance still further
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in the spiritual life we begin to think of others and of the help which they need from God.
In Intercession we plead that others may receive from God the light and the strength which He is so willing to give them, As we grow yet more in our spiritual life we do not think of any immediate needs either of ourselves or of others but we are moved by the pure love of God.
We long to abide in Him because He is greater than any gift He can possibly give us.
Let us run our minds over the various gifts He can give. The gift of health—God is certainly greater than that.
The gift of success in life—of course, He is far greater than any success He can grant us.
Forgiveness of sins, victory over temptation, power to help others—compared with Him and His Presence and His
Love, all these are small things indeed.
He is willing to give us goodness and truth and beauty and love, but as He is Himself the Source of all these things, He is much greater than any gift
He gives.
We may prize highly the pearls which we take from the depths of the ocean.
They shine with lustre.
But they are only a few pearls and however lovely they are, they are limited in number.
The ocean itself is full of pearls and it is impossible to exhaust its riches.
The more we dive in the more pearls we bring out.
Thus the ocean is greater than any pearls which we may bring out from its depths.
God is greater than any gifts He gives us.
We arrange for a wedding and urge our near relations and friends to attend it.
We look forward to their coming.
We are quite pleased if they arrive and by their presence add to the joy of the occasion.
If, on the other hand, they write to us and tell us that they are sending their gifts but are not coming themselves, we are quite disappointed.
What we want is not their gifts but their presence.
However costly the gifts may be, it is the presence of our friends and the relations whom we love, that we desire and not what they give.
Love itself is a priceless gem.
We do not regard love as the highest thing in life because of what it can buy for us.
We consider pure love as something of infinite value.
In our family we had a servant-who was with us for over fifty years.
He was completely devoted to my father.
He went with my father wherever he travelled and looked after him with. the
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utmost faithfulness.
We were sure that wherever my father was he was in good hands.
If we happened to fall ill this faithful servant looked after us equally well and we knew that there would be nothing jacking.
He continued in our service to the end of his life. He was paid a small salary every month, but the service which. he rendered cannot be estimated in terms of money.
I regard my contact with him as a great experience in my life.
He was faithful and devoted, not so much for the money which he received from us but because loyalty was a real part of his nature.
Such faithfulness-shows that there is a genuine spark of goodness in man.
One who loves God for Himself and not for anything He does has that spark.
If we love God only for what He does, we may cease to love Him if we think that He does not help us. Sometimes people say, 'Why should I go to Church when God does not answer my prayer?
I asked for His help to get a job.
I have not got it. Why should I worship Him?'
This is a completely wrong attitude.
We do not worship God because He enables us to pass an examination or because He gives us robust health, but because He is good and loving and righteous.
What happens to us may appear good or bad; it may be success or failure, health or sickness.
We cannot always understand why God deals with us in certain ways rather than in certain other ways.
But we believe in His goodness and grace and we love Him with a pure love without reference to any particular blessings which He may or may not give us.
Living in God's presence does make an immense difference.
Mountain air is bracing and builds up our bodies. Many people in India plan to spend their holidays on the hills so as to get stronger and healthier for their work on the plains during the other months of the year.
The hill tribes are not aware of any invigorating effect of the mountain air.. They are living there because their forefathers were living there.
They do not know anything about the power of the mountain air which puts new energy into men.
Those who live in the Presence of God constantly without desiring to get anything from Him are likewise invigorated. They may not be aware of this, and yet they are different men.
They are filled with love.
They are truthful and good because they are in constant touch with the Source of truth and goodness.
There is a beauty pervading their lives because they are in communion
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with the Source of all beauty.
If a man says he is living in the Presence of God and is untruthful, selfish, greedy, jealous or arrogant, we cannot believe that he is really living in the Presence of God, .
All men seek the help of God in times of need.
Even worldly people are stirred to pray when, for instance, a loved one is dying.
Those who believe in God and in prayer are constantly led to place before Him their immediate needs and the needs of those with whom they are connected.
This urge to get God's help is deeply rooted in all religious people. The deeper and stronger the religious experience of a devotee, the keener is his longing to place his wants before God.
This is a very natural thing.
All religious men and women can point to numerous occasions when they had received of God's goodness.
The volume of answered prayer, which gradually increases in the case of each individual in the course of of time, lends strength to this belief. We are not merely influenced by the answers which we ourselves have received in our experience, but we take into account the vast amount of answered prayer which has accumulated in the experience of religious people all through the ages and in all nations.
It is but reasonable that petition for our own needs and intercession for the needs of others should occupy an important place in our prayer life.
But prayer is not complete unless, besides petition and intercession, there is also communion.
In addition to our confession of sin, our prayer for spiritual help, our intercession on behalf of others, we should also wait upon God, abiding in His Presence, dwelling on His goodness, gazing on His beauty.
A great deal of our prayer is merely petition and intercession.
While these are important, they are not the only prayer we should offer.
They should certainly be supplemented and enriched by periods of waiting upon God and abiding in His love.
Otherwise our prayer will be fragmentary and badly mutilated.