How do/does prayer and meditation differ?
When I read your question the first thing that came to mind was The Year of Living Biblically because, as beautifulcheese said, he really wrestles with prayer. Personally, my prayer life is all over the map. I was raised in church, I now work for a church so I feel like I should be some kind of prayer master by now, but I’m not. I’ve had a few powerful moments of connection through prayer but mostly I have the feeling of putting everything out there and waiting for a response. It’s interesting because I don’t get frustrated by the lack of immediate response like I do when my husband doesn’t respond to me immediately. I guess I accept it as a given going in. What I’ve found is that I eventually get responses (directly or indirectly) but that most of the responses I get take place outside of my prayer time. So what’s in my head when I pray? Much of the time I’m trying to push back all the outside thoughts. I’m fighting to stay focused. I lose that battle a lot but on my good days, I even
I’ve been going to an Eastern Orthodox church for several months and studying Orthodoxy for a bit longer, and one prayer the Orthodox often use is called the Jesus Prayer. It’s a way to follow St. Paul’s instructions to “pray unceasingly”. Basically, it consists of the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”, although there can be shorter or longer versions of it. Through repeating this prayer as often as we can, we seek to push other thoughts out of our minds while focusing more and more on God until you reach a point where the prayer “says itself” – becomes a constant rhythm in your heart, more or less. Here’s a little more information from http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7104.asp Because prayer is a living reality, a deeply personal encounter with the living God, it is not to be confined to any given classification or rigid analysis. However, in order to offer some b
What an interesting question! I find it a wonderful thing for someone to ask. Congrats on even considering it. I too am a protestant. I guess you’re right, that we don’t communicate how to pray. I don’t remember anyone teaching me and sadly I’ve not taught my children – which I will rectify soon enough since you brought this up. It’s important to note first, that I’m not the best Christian in the world. I don’t practice it the way that I should but I truly believe and that’s the key in the end, despite Christian-phobics beliefs. I remember a passage in the Bible about Solomon. Solomon prayed for wisdom, and God was very pleased that he didn’t ask for wealth or power, only wisdom. Solomon’s prayer was granted for that reason. It is that passage that has guided my prayers. I pray for everyone I know, that they remain healthy, happy and find Him. I pray for His guidance in all matters (to be a good mother, sister, aunt, wife, friend, employee, boss, etc. – all my roles in life), to make t
