Just pick up that spiritual phone called prayer and talk to God.

I'm afraid that sometimes among people who pray frequently there's a loss of the mentality of the sacredness of the act of prayer. I'll focus mainly in this post on personal prayers.

For those of us (including myself) who pray often, I have a few words of advice.

1) Don't announce to God a list of stuff you wish to get. God's not Santa Claus. If you really need something, by all means go ahead and ask, I don't mean to deter anyone from asking God for things they need, but ask after prayerfully seeking the Lord's will and then doing all you can personally to make it happen.

2) Don't just give God an ambiguous list of all the stuff you want blessed (Bless my family, bless my friends, bless me in school, etc.). Unless you're 4 years old we can think a little deeper than that. We can be more specific and put a little more thought into our prayers and the specific blessings needed.

3) Here's a favorite of mine, partially cause I'm guilty of it too: Don't zone out halfway through your prayer just to zone back in 3 minutes later after re-hashing in your mind that one experience earlier that day when you saw that one person and you said that one thing that you kind of regret now, but you're not sure how they took it and how other people saw you might've meant it and now you have to see everyone tomorrow and you're not sure whether they remembered it and how you should act around them so you should probably just play it cool and wait for them to make the first move, but what if you don't see them and - Oh yeah! there was that thing that you were supposed to get done today but you didn't so how are you gonna get it done in time now? you'll probably have to stay up late, or heaven forbid, wake up early tomorrow. gosh you'd better get to bed right away! What are you even doing chilling on your knees right now when you should be sleeping?? ...

.... Oh yeah. You were praying. See how annoying that is? If I had a friend that called me every night and did that zone-out bit every time, I'd stop answering their calls! Luckily for the human race God is infinitely more patient and loving then I am. But don't zone out during your prayers. The best way I've found to focus my prayers is to pray out loud. It really changes the dynamic of the prayer.

The reason I'm talking about prayer is that the phrase "Ask and ye shall receive" is given 10 times in the D&C alone! (C&B #7) I'm starting to think the Lord really wants us to pray to Him. I dunno though. That's just the vibe I'm getting.

What is prayer though? This is one of my all time favorite descriptions of prayer. It comes from the LDS Bible Dictionary. Now don't skip this just because you think you know what prayer it. I promise you that this description of pray will amaze you. I've read it a dozen times and it touches me. I've taken the liberty of underlining the particularly choice sections.

"As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part. Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings." (BD, Prayer)

"Ask and ye shall receive" is actually a very powerful commandment and blessing. I like to tie it to 3 Nephi 18:20 "And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you." I wish I had more time and space to write more about this topic (I'll probably get to it again later, it's one of my favorites), but I encourage a thorough study of prayer to anyone wishing to enrich their relationship with God.

Prayer is beautiful. Truly. Prayer is a sacred privilege. How else could we to fulfill the divine mandate given in the book of John: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God."

Get to know God a little better. Pray to Him and feel his love encompass you. No one, I repeat, no one, is too sinful or too unclean, or too un-holy to talk to God. Christ said himself: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

I know that God answers prayers. He has and does answer mine. I know that he will answer yours.

Andrew

If you're struggling with how to pray click here.