I believe praise and prayer is the most critical component to life’s journey’s fullness.
Prayer offers the believer:
Salvation and Forgiveness- Prayer promises deliverance, grace, and daily covering of our sins. Provision and Care- Prayer comes with promises to hear concerns and to meet our needs if we believe. Love, Peace, and Companionship- Prayer blankets us with unconditional blessings- things money or any idol cannot offer. Everlasting love, peace, and companionship all the days of our life through prayer/praise.
Prayer brings life to the table through the Christian faith.
Prayer is one of the most common phenomena in all human life. We use prayer for everything throughout our faith. When we speak about salvation and forgiveness, this is all through prayer. Prayer is our direct communication with God. It is the backbone of our intimate relationship. Anytime we seek forgiveness, healing, or comfort, we look for all things to happen through prayer.
Theologians of times past created a distinction between liturgical and devotional prayer. Devotional prayer is private and meant to sustain us personally, while liturgical is more public, aka the church's prayer, not our own.
God has requested a relationship with his people since the beginning of time. God has tried many different avenues to create a relationship with his people. The book of Exodus is a great place to start for me because his words on relationships and what God wanted to see from his people were described with Moses on Mt. Sinai. In the book of Exodus, we learned that God requested a covenant with his people and gave explicit instructions of obedience and relation criteria within our ten commandments. This would help guide the covenant people into a relationship with God. God produced his name upon his people providing intimacy through prayer. The first four commandments in the Bible are about cultivating a relationship with God.
Our Heavenly Father wants us to know there is only one true God and is committed to making HIS presents known.
There are many other voices in our heads, and discerning the voice of God is essential. The voice of God challenges and stretches us, even as it is the only voice to soothe and comfort. The voice of God invites us to live beyond all fear, even as it inspires holy fear.
God led his people to the wilderness before the promised land. This was to cultivate their relationship and learn to rely on God. We have given God praise through worship in song for thousands of years, one of the most powerful ways to pray and cultivate a relationship of intimacy and reverence. Prayer may come in different forms but first, give thanks and praise. Then ask for forgiveness of the sins you are aware of and ask God to reveal to you the ones you don’t see. Pray for the Lord’s will upon your heart so dreams and accomplishments don’t feel like such a struggle. Pray for holy alignment with God and to make your narrow path light so you see your direction with decisions. I always pray for Godly wisdom and discernment and to place my God-given armor on each day.