Blog # 199 - a Teach us to pray...

Blog # 199 - a Teach us to pray... In evaluating or measuring our prayer experience we might ask how do we pray and what we do we pray about. To measure our prayer another way we ask what is the quality of our prayer. Like asking the question of a painting, is it beautiful, we ask of our payer is it valuable to us, do we enjoy our prayer, do we pray by way of speaking to God spontaneously throughout the day, or at various intervals in our life such as at Sunday worship, to fulfill a rule, keep a tradition going, or pay a debt? The answer to these and similar questions identify our prayer as either like a report a person who works for a bakery might make to the President of the bakery: " we need a hundred sacks of wheat flour, forty pounds of lard, ten pounds of salt, five pounds of cocoa , Amen !" , or like a love letter a man might write to his wife: :I love you very much. Thanks for the green socks you bought for me, and don;t worry about getting the lawn mowed, I'll be home to do it early Friday afternoon. " I don't imagine people who have to issue reports enjoy it very much. At least I don't. On the other hand to write a friendly letter is always a joy. It is that way with prayer also. If you enjoy your prayer it is a good sign. There is something humanly fulfilling about it. There is special joy to live in the presence of God and to speak to God as our Father. The next question we ask to measure our payer is like the question asked of a painting: how much is it worth? Of our prayer we ask what does it do. Like a painting that is made up of each stroke of the brush that went before the last, so our prayer today is built upon our prayer of yesterday, each day adding to the whole of our relationship with God new experiences for which we are thankful, new insights that cause our words of praise to be more meaningful. What does our prayer do? Does our prayer really give us the sense of having praised the Lord? It should. Does our prayer influence our lives? It should. Does our prayer deepen or faith, bring us consolation and encouragement, challenge us ,bring us joy? It should. The disciples asked Jesus: " Lord, teach us to pray...