FaithPrayers Newsletter – July-August 2013
When a person has never prayed, it can seem a bit daunting at first to do so. And yet, for most of us whatever our background, in an hour of need we find ourselves almost instinctively crying out to the Being we somehow know is out there… someplace. This has been true through millennia.
As the author C.S. Lewis once mentioned: we cry out for food when we are hungry, and such a thing as food exists. It seems most likely that we cry out to God because such a Being exists. Unless the majority of our ancestors from every ethnicity, race and culture around this globe were wrong, we might want to consider why, through the ages, they continued to cry out to the heavens. They cried out to the One who made them because the cry came, inherently, from the depths of their being. They knew to call out, even if they differed on the particulars about that Being.
Our present culture, however, is notorious for thinking that all those who have gone before us were backwards and that we are somehow very sophisticated and better thinkers. We would do well, perhaps, to be a bit more humble and understand that they knew many, many things.
There are very few religions, and indeed very few spiritual and belief systems of any kind that do not believe, in one form or another, that there is a creative force, an intelligence, in operation all around us and throughout nature and the universe. Some concentrate on the utter genius behind the complicated mathematical formations found throughout nature. Some concentrate on the shockingly high intelligence of the animal kingdom. Some concentrate on the presence of angels or beings from other dimensions. All, in one way or another, point the way to an overriding, profound intelligence behind all that we know and do, see or understand. An intelligence that is beyond us. The most ancient stories from around the globe, on every single continent, point to One Being from whom all that we know was first created.
Christians believe that there is One Great Spirit, One God, One Supreme Being, One Above All. The Apostle Paul says, “…for in Him we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 17:28). The ancient writings that were compiled into the Bible speak of this Being as (translated into English): The Almighty, The Creator, God Most High, The Lord Our Maker, The Lord Our Provider, The Eternal God, and, finally, as the name He said He would always be known as, “I Am that I Am”, the One who Exists.
So, if you are new to prayer, probably the first thing to realize is that there is indeed Someone listening.
If you don’t know where to start and are new to prayer, I would suggest you start by asking to speak with your Creator. Just say that. “Creator, I am speaking to you, not to anyone else, not to any other spirit or being, just to you, the One who made me.”
You can be certain that the Creator will hear you. There won’t be any accidental mishaps, such as the wrong Creator hearing. There is only One. He knows who He is and He knows who you are. You are in safe hands when you speak to Him with the title that is the most basic, the one that gave us our life-spirit, our very being.
He has been revealing Himself. He is listening. Not for your willful controlling imaginings or for ill-thought out angry demands that might end up truly harming you… but for you. Just you. He wants to hear your voice.
It’s an amazing thought, isn’t it?
As Psalm 94:9 says, “Does he who fashioned the ear not hear?”
Blessings,
Mary Ann Offenstein
Director and Founder
FaithPrayers National Prayer Line
(First article in the new series on prayer)