A person starting his journey to the salvation of the soul through the knowledge of faith unwittingly wonders why people prayed to God. What were they begging for?
All peoples who have ever lived on our planet knew the secret words of the appeal to higher forces (to God), which were transmitted from generation to generation. These words were called prayer.
Orthodox Christians revere Jesus Christ. They know how to pray to God, how to ask for forgiveness from Him and atone for their sin.
Forgiveness in Prayer
To pray for your sins in front of other people, you must attend church services. This is done in order to receive the main thing from the Almighty - the forgiveness of sins and the indulgence of grace through confession.
The Lord forgives sins to those who show unshakable faith in the absence of evil thoughts.
Every day, a person living in this busy world commits a large number of sins for various reasons and circumstances. This is mainly due to weak willpower. The struggle between good and evil never stops in the hearts of people.
Gracious god
In order for He to hear the prayer, one must rely on the postulate, which states that it is from the heart that evil thoughts proceed that defile man. Sinful thoughts are generated deep in the subconscious, and then they flow into bad actions.
Before praying to God, it is important to understand that the main thing in prayer is the result, which is the long-awaited deliverance from sin. A person must realize that he has committed a bad deed. Then he must admit his guilt and no longer repeat the deed.
Faith in the mercy of God will entail forgiveness if a person laments and repents of all that he has done.
To show the sincerity of your requests for forgiveness for bad deeds, you need to give alms to those in need. Thus, compassion and mercy for the sick and impoverished sufferers are manifested.
Another way is prayer, which helps free the soul from sin. It must come from the heart. Pray with sincere repentance, and God will forgive.
The saving power of prayer
Before repenting, the sinner needs reconciliation with his enemies. In this difficult matter, the icon of the Virgin, called the "Seven-shot", helps a lot.
Three common prayers will help the penitent:
- Repentance and forgiveness.
- Forgiveness of insults.
- Prayer to God for forgiveness.
You can look at heaven and pray to God, if that is what pleases the prayer for the purity and sincerity of his words. The Lord was crucified on the Cross, thus performing the act of forgiveness of all people.
How to start praying
Those who are just embarking on the path of churching are interested in the question of how to pray to God. Many people ask whether it is better to do this in a book or in your own words.
Modern theologians have the opinion that a person who is just starting to pray should do it in his own words. Indeed, for him, the canonical sentences and phrases found in prayer books will be largely incomprehensible.
Prayer must be non-standard and sincere. As soon as they begin to soullessly read what is written, a feeling of form, rather than content, may immediately arise, but nobody needs it.
It is important to know that prayer can even discredit a person. This is one of the greatest dangers that are present not only for beginners. It turns out that sometimes those people who spend most of their lives in the temple of God begin to reproduce prayer as a kind of standard form, which is given in church books. As a result, they get a set of words, because there is no sincere appeal to God - rational, conscious and attentive.
Useful Prayer
We often hear that we need to pray more often. But do not forget about the very simple thing that prayer books (people who ask God for others) ascended to Heaven. They died, sinking to the very bottom of hell.
What is the correct prayer according to the teachings of the holy fathers? This was splendidly set forth in his works by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. A person who considers himself an Orthodox believer must have books related to God. This is necessary in order to more often cast a glance at them and receive reproaches of conscience, which will make us at least sometimes open and read these pages.
The teachings of Brianchaninov should be studied and tried to read at one time not one hundred pages, but two or three pages. Such exercises do edification to the mind, heart, and soul.
Reading with attention
Ignatius Brianchaninov teaches us that prayer is considered correct only when it is performed with reverent attention. If you turn to God, thinking about another person, this is an insult to our Lord. Prayer does not need to chatter. Reading requires attention and repentance. Where there are no these three components, there can be no benefit, there is only harm. They don’t even talk to a person like that.
God does not only listen to words. He understands the thoughts of those who turn to him. No need to try to hide something from Him. You can not arrange a certain theatrical performance (screaming, crying). God will hear silent and sincere prayer.
People who tried to portray repentance and humility, which they did not feel, then fell into pride and vanity.
An amazing incident is known that happened to the seraphim of the Glinsky desert. Once a familiar monk came to him and said: "Father, I have unceasing prayer." To this, Father Seraphim replied: “You should remember that you have no prayer. You're just used to certain words, like others get used to swearing. ”
Full attention before God
Many people have a logical question about how to pray to God. Before whom to read prayers, if no one is visible? Here it is necessary to decide who we are addressing to, God or some kind of soulless force, before which we must read out words that are incomprehensible to us. In the second case, there is no prayer. A person simply does this out of habit.
Therefore, some confessors say that it is better to read fewer prayers, but with attention. If it is difficult to focus on a long time, you need to determine for yourself any interval, for example, 15 minutes. In order not to be distracted by the clock, you can set an alarm clock and with attention and reverence to do your pious work. If a person during this time was able to read only one prayer, this is not scary. The main thing is that he turned to God.
Brief attention
Experienced people say that you can pray in any position and in any place. This must always be done as soon as I think of God. After all, no one is stopping us from saying a short Jesus prayer: "Lord, have mercy." Some of us say these words many times a day, without giving them much meaning.
We pray a lot and ask God for help in our needs and illnesses, so that he will quickly save us from all misfortunes. However, when turning to God, it is very important to show your faith and say: “Lord, You are Wisdom and Love. You love me like no one else. You know, what i want. Thy will be done, not mine. ”
The danger of prayer
The Lord, seeing the attention and reverence with which a person relates to Him, will surely give him help and spiritual support.
Some people live for decades, but receive nothing from God. You can continuously go to the temple and read prayers, but forget about the above conditions, depriving yourself of the mercy and gifts of God. It is very important. It is necessary to accept the conditions described above, since they are extremely necessary.
It should also be noted the fact that many from wrong prayers go crazy, fall into pride.
How to pray to God at home
On how to turn to the Lord, Isaac the Syrian writes the following: “Do not be reckless in your petitions, so as not to anger God, asking the King of the Kings for anything worthless. This humiliates Him. Thirsty for perishable earthly goods arouses indignation against the Heavenly King. "
Many are also interested in how to pray at home so that God hears and forgives. People ask if it is necessary to do this through prayer. Some ministers of the church believe that this is not so important.
Prayer in your home can be perceived as homework at school, which you must complete yourself. Only then will he be a good judge.
You can pray in your own words. Some recommend that you follow the rule with Seraphim of Sarov, which consists in reading the prayers “Our Father” (three times), “Virgin Mary Hail” (three times) and “Symbol of Faith” (once) in the morning and evening.
This is part of the answer to the question about how to properly pray to God at home.
Canons and creativity
That morning and evening prayer rule that we have came to us from the Middle Ages. In those days, it was composed by ascetic monks. It included texts of appeals to God from various collections. Monks used to wake up to prayer at midnight. She was called a midnight office. Now it is morning.
The proposed Orthodox collection of morning and evening prayers is very successful, but you need to understand that it is only recommended, and not mandatory. Repeating the same sentences can get bored if you do this day after day, year after year. Then a person will stop making appeals to God sincerely. To prevent this from happening, the rule can be slightly diluted.
In answer to the question of how to pray to God at home, I would like to add that many reverend fathers offered to be creative about this action. Prayer is not just a proofreading of some church rules. This is a conversation with God. We should be in that attitude. Then no one will say: "I pray to God that he will help me, but He does not hear me."
Warmth of heart
Before reading the prayer, you need to get up and be silent for a while. When all extraneous thoughts and feelings subside, you need to present yourself in the face of God, cross yourself and begin with the words: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen".
After that, we say the initial prayers: “Glory to you, Lord” and “King of Heaven.” Not everyone knows them by heart, so you can use the book.
How to pray that God will hear the prayer? You can read small fragments from evening or morning rules. At the same time, you should try to reflect on every word.
When our heart warms even a little, we will want to stop and pray in our own words, rejoice, cry, thank the Lord. The rules of prayer are not to be read out, but to warm the heart with the warmth of prayer.
It is for this purpose that collections were created, which included the works of the church liturgical heritage. They include the prayers of John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Macarius the Great.
Just talk with the Lord, speak your own words, read the canons or akathists of the saints glorified in the face - Xenia the Blessed, Tryphon of Spiridon, John of Kronstadt, John of Russia and others.
During the existence of man on earth, prayer became necessary to receive grace from God through which the character of man can change. He becomes mentally rich and strong, persistent and courageous. He begins to be kinder to people around him, may not allow another to commit a sinful act, tell about the nature of the origin of good and evil, show how to do reasonable things.