Prayer has been defined and written about many times before, in poetry, in personal experience, Biblical expositions, and others. Prayer is not new, it has been around since the beginning of time, in the garden of Eden. Prayer is here for 'sharing' our lives with God. God's people in the Old Testament, the Israelites, prayed three times daily. Samuel considered it his duty to pray, if his didn't he thought of it as a sin. There are some basic components about prayer that every child asks as he/she learns to pray. First component is "why pray? " The second component deals with how prayer is done. The third component that an older child seeks to answer is "Do all people experience the same things in prayer?"
First "why pray?" God delights in our asking and is pleased when we do pray. We pray to ask of God. Prayer is our means of communicating with our Father in heaven. We bring our needs and desires before Him in faith. "Which of you, if your son asks for bread will give him a stone? . . . If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those that ask him." (Matthew 7:9,11)
The greatest prayer ever spoken, what we today refer to as The Lord's Prayer, is mainly petitionary or asking for one self. Jesus urged his disciples to "ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). Asking God to do things or provide things is called supplication. There are two kinds of supplication. Petitions are requests for self we bring before God. Intercessory prayer is praying on the behalf of someone else. The Lord's Prayer is therefore made up of petitions.
But why then ask God for something he already knows we need? P.T. Forsyth notes, "Love loves to be told what it knows already... It wants to be asked for what it longs to give." But do not be afraid to ask of something you think is of little importance. Matters that are great to us are also great to God. "Just as we long for our own children to share with us the petty details of their day at school, so God longs to hear from us the smallest of matters of our lives. It delights him when we share."
"Before they call, I will answer and while they are yet speaking I will hear." Isaiah 65:25. We pray because we want God to grant what we ask. Sometimes the Lord grants it to us other times he does not, but why does He not answer? We must admit that we are confused over these things as C.S. Lewis notes "Every war, every famine or plague, almost every death-bed, is the monument to a petition that was not granted." The true answer may be in 1 Corinthians 13:12. Only in the age to come will we understand fully even as we are fully known. The Lord is always looking out for our best interests. "We shall come to a day in heaven where we shall gratefully know that God's great refusals were sometimes the true answer to our truest prayer." Sometime we may ask for foolish things, C.S. Lewis writes "If God had granted all the silly prayers I've made in my life where would I be now?" We may have asked for things that in answering our prayer would be detrimental to others or refusals of their prayer. We also might not be prepared for what we have asked. The final reason our prayers may not be answered is that they really are but we do not have the eyes to see it or we refuse to see it. "When you pray get ready or duck. . ." has been a phrase often heard our house. God knows our greater needs and instead of giving us what we want, He gives us something better. Part of our petition must always be that we are open to see things the way God sees them. "When you ask and not receive, because you ask with wrong motives..." (James 4:3)
The second component is "how should we pray?" Although many people have suggested many ways to pray and what should be in a "correct" prayer, the Bible give us different ways to pray. Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple was praise/thanksgiving and repeated God's words of warning to the people of Israel. The Psalms are prayers; some praise the greatness of God, some ask God to destroy the enemies of the person praying and of God, many request help from God. As just mentioned the Lord's Prayer is basically petitions. Prayers have been identified by the main objective of its contents. Such as using the acronym ACTS to remember the key parts. 'A' stands for adoration, or offering praises to the Lord. 'C' is for confession, asking the Lord to forgive sins. 'T' is there to remind us to give thanks unto the Lord. And finally 'S' indicates supplication, or petitions and intercessory requests that you bring to the Lord. There is no "correct" way to pray, except that one converses with the Lord and hides not his/her own heart. We don't have to earn our way into the presence of God. Nor do we have to hope that He will hear our requests.
Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God,... Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith...(Hebrews 10:19-22)
The third component concerns the experience of people who pray. Living prayerfully is shown in how prayer shapes individuals' daily lives, the practical choices and relationships each one has with God and the church, the Body of Christ.
"I discovered that prayer is more than just talking to God," says Louise Williams, executive director of the Lutheran Deaconess Association. Prayer is my relationship with God, and it is also a way of nurturing that relationship." Williams sees prayer as everything we do that might lead us to hear or see God. In other words, every moment may be an opportunity to feel God's presence more fully and to deepen one's relationship with the Creator.
Mary Phillips, a young graduate from college, says that she wondered for years what the Apostle Paul meant by his word to "pray unceasingly." Did he literally mean 24-hours on your knees? Phillips feels that Paul meant that "individuals should live prayer unceasingly; listen purposefully for God in day-to-day life, and respond according to our inner voice. For some this may mean action, for others contemplation."
Foster says that prayer is "about a love relationship: an enduring, continuing, growing love relationship with the great God of the universe. And overwhelming love invites a response." Also he points out that to be effective in pray, we need to be effective lovers.
Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love....
One day a friend of mine was walking through a shopping mall with his two-year-old son. The child was in a particularly cantankerous mood, fussing and fuming. The frustrated father tried everthing to quiet his son, but nothing seemed to help. The child simply would not obey. Then, under some special inspiration, the father scooped up his son and, holding him close to his chest, began singing an impromptu love song. None of the words rhymed. He sang off key. And yet, as best he could this father began sharing his heart. "I love you," he sang. "I'm so glad you're my boy. You make me happy. I like the way you laugh." On they went from one store to the next. Quietly the father continued singing off key and making up words that did not rhyme. The child relaxed and became still, listening to this strange and wonderful song. Finally, they finished shopping and went to the car. As the father opened the door and prepared to buckle his son into the carseat, the child lifted his head and said simply, "Sing it to me again, Daddy! Sing it to me again!" Prayer is a little like that. With simplicity of heart we allow ourselves to be gathered up into the arms of the Father and let him sing his love song over us. Three components of prayer have been looked at briefly. The initial question of "why pray?" was answered simply with God asks us to pray because He delights to hear us. The second component concerned the "correct" form of prayer. There are different parts to prayer, but always to the Father Creator from His child. And finally a few experiences from the lives of people who pray revealed their insights. Pray is not just talking to God, but a way of living from minute to minute. It is truly "the soul's sincere desire."