Stop praying to get what you want and start praying to want what you get!
What I believe in my heart and know about prayer is that it is relationship with God. Just like human relationships, sometimes one form of communication works, sometimes another. I have
learned that in prayer, different approaches work depending on the situation.
For me the most common and quick prayers I use are, HELP ME, HELP ME, and THANK YOU, THANK YOU. At fist, most of my prayers were for help, but I think that the more I practiced prayer as a daily, it became a habit. Now find myself giving thanks daily for many things. Both of these prayers are legitimate and valuable, which leads me to my second point.
The words we use need to be our words because if relationship with God is what I seek, it is best to speak from my heart. I don’t feel that any structured forms, times, content of prayer remains necessary, once a person is committed to regular prayer, and it becomes a habit. "The Lord’s Prayer," our model prayer given to us by Jesus, contains all the ‘things’ we need for a ‘full’ prayer: acknowledgement and praise of God, turning our wills over to God, petition for necessities, request for forgiveness and the ability to forgive others.
Using "The Lord’s Prayer" as a starting point, and remembering that the purpose of prayer is to be in relationship with God is what guides my prayer life. As I grow older, I have learned that silent prayer (as in NO WORDS from me) works wonders in deepening my relationship with God. Here, at last, in silence, I can begin to hear God’s voice, feel God’s presence as never before. Silence helps me know that God is with me, acknowledged or not. This is the greatest comfort I can have.
The question that usually arises about prayer, other than how to do it, is what about unanswered prayer, that is, when our specific petitions are not granted.
I have learned two things about this: One is to stop asking for specific outcomes and simply hold the person or situation up into God’s Light; the second is that prayer prepares the pray-er for the answer. Prayer opens us up and helps us receive the answer when it comes.
I learned my best prayer advice when I was a beginner, by a more advanced beginner in my beloved 12 Step meetings. He told me to stop praying to get what I want and start praying to want what I get! This advice still motivates me to this day to seek God’s will and not mine!
“In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy.” Philippians 1:4
“…with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be’”
Big Book Pg 87
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