Hey y'all!
So today I wanted to write about prayer.
I was recently studying this topic and thought that some of the things that impressed me might be helpful to you as well.
Prayer is an interesting thing. When I think of prayer I think of sharpening an axe. If we aren't using it every day, it's going to be a lot harder to accomplish the things we need to do with it when we need it.
Pres Hinckley said, “The trouble with most of our prayers is that we give them as if we were picking up the telephone and ordering groceries—we place our order and hang up. We need to meditate, contemplate, [and] think of what we are praying about and for.”
For prayer to work, it needs to be a whole lot more than that. For prayer to work, we need to be talking to God daily, like we are talking to a friend. Sharpening our axe also means that it is better to prepare yourself before you pray and think about what you want to pray about before you open the prayer.
So, how do we do that, though? How do we pray as people? I have had investigators that don't even know if God can hear them if they aren't on their knees talking vocally to Him. What a blessing it is to be able to bring that truth to them. To be able to tell them, that yes, He is real. Yes, He always hears you. Yes, God cares!
I often think of the difference between Enos' Prayer and the Prayer of the Brother of Jared. They were both clearly at two different points in their lives, as well as with their testimonies. For Enos, it was probably one of His first times really praying to God. It says that His soul hungered, and that He was essentially builiding off of His father's testimony, because it talks a little bit about that, How His fathers words to the saints sunk deep into his soul. Then it says, He knelt down before his Maker and prayed. This was the moment that the Lord had been waiting for. He had been waiting for Enos to open His mouth in vocal prayer and cry in faith before the Lord. But for the Brother of Jared, that foundation was already there, and He knew.
Enos initially had the faith of a seed, that was barely planted, but the brother of Jared shows us what we can potentially become. if we have enough faith, as time goes on, we will find that our wrestle with ourselves to get to God becomes one of less and less doubt and more and more faith, until we find ourselves able to say, like the Brother of Jared did:
"Behold, I know that thou canst do this, O Lord."
So how do we have that faith though? How do we receive a perfect knowledge. Well, Perfect Knowledge doesn't come right away. but it does come. First it starts like a seed, like Enos was saying, when his soul hungered, so He opened His mouth. Listen to the words Alma proclaims to the Zoramites about the power of faith exercised through quiet, earnest, sincere prayer:
21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; [for]... faith [is]... things which are not seen, which are true.
22 And now, behold, I say unto you... God is merciful unto all who believe on his name; therefore he desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word.
23 And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also. Now this is not all; little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned.
Read more in Alma 32. It has the steps you need to follow.
I believe the Lord really wants to hear from us, He really does. It's like that scripture in revelations, and like that song that became one of my favorite songs ever in high school. And it's because of these things, and because of the spiritual experiences I have had that I have come to know that He really does listen.
He wants to help us, too. But we have to be willing to try. God helps those who help themselves. God will not violate our agency. He can only invite us to come. Come, and drink, and be filled.
5 Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.
9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest thegift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up intoeverlasting life.
~John Chapter 4
Christ is already there. He is already waiting. The peace, the spirit the joy that comes in my nightly prayer out here in the mission field is ofttimes one of the only things that keeps me going. Often I am so tired my body begs for rest. But my spirit, my soul, and its achings and yearnings pain me more than anything that could ever physically beset me. So it is that a lot of nights, I find myself crying out to God for His help and his understanding.
And every time I truly ask, and truly seek, I find. I receive. I am freed. And I realize that I am never alone.
It is my testimony to you that prayer is how we come to know that we are never alone. It's how we learn that we are loved by someone greater, someone more pure, and someone who truly knows and loves us perfectly. I know He is real, and that He loves us and cares for us. Never give up hope. For although we are fragile, He is perfectly strong, and perfectly able to pick up all the pieces and to put us back together again. This is my testimony to you. I love you all. May God bless each of you in your efforts to come to Him, and may you all find rest to your souls, as you remember who is the way the truth and the life. And remember who holds the keys to the gate, and the keys to our chains. We only have but to ask, and we can again be made free, whether that be sin, ailment, affliction, or otherwise, I testify to you that we can all be made whole as we remember Him, the Redeemer of our Souls, and open the door. I know this to be true. And that's my testimony to you today which I say in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love,
Elder Hakala :)
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