How to Pray

Pray is to have a relationship with God. This relationship is not that of friends or the relationship between brothers and sisters. It means to have a relationship with a Father. Let that sink in…

In classical society, it is the Father who gives the family the identity, and the family is known by his name. If we call God, our Father, there are two elements to note.

1. God is our Father and we are going to be known by His Name.
2. Jesus does not teach us in this Gospel Passage to call God as my Father, but Our Father, that means I share His Fatherhood of me with others. We cannot deny this, like Pharaoh who denied God’s Fatherhood of Egypt, when he rejected, the meaning which Moses’ words proposed, when Moses told him that Israel was God’s First Born (Ex 4), but that also meant God had other Children, Egypt included.

The greatest danger to living with God as Our Father is we ourselves. Because like Adam we are in disbelief that God can love us even though we sin and our corrupt. We cannot accept this. The other is the voices of others. These voices may be good intentioned or otherwise, but they seem to dictate who we are, as if they know everything about us, inside out. But that is a lie… Only we know what sort of a relationship we have with God, and He has accepted us as we are, including our lopsided – unbalanced love of God. When you approach God in the sincerity/insincerity of your heart, do not fear – for God is able to accomplish much for you, on your behalf and he literally does this.

Take to heart the lesson of the Sower, the Seed and the Soil. The Sower (God) loves us and thus acted on our behalf by sending the Seed (God’s Word – Jesus Our Christ), and we are the Soil. God takes us individually from being wayward soil to become soil bearing Fruit in abundance in Jesus. And if anyone says God is not able to save anyone, think again…

Take heart then, believe/trust in the Love of your Father in Heaven, and choose to remain in His presence.