According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, prayer is an address, such as a petition, to God or a god in word or thought, but I believe prayer has a deeper meaning. Prayer is us lifting our minds and heart to God spiritually.
Every day I was so used to the normalcy of getting up every day and going to school, with the occasional activity or two. I went to church most Sundays with my family as everyone else did. I prayed the prayers straight from the memoization that I was taught in school and at home. Life just fell into a repetitive cycle, throughout my life prayer was just another thing I did, like brushing my teeth or getting dressed in the morning. Then life took a change and I needed new priorities.
Although I may have never moved across the world or had to switch schools, change is challenging in different ways. Life took an awakening change starting in middle school. Much like everyone else, I entered sixth grade confused about who I was. I didn’t know where I fit in or who to be, but life went on.
I lost many friends to drama and there was never enough time for living. After being so caught up in a life that did not matter, there was a not-so-easy awakening from people who cared about me. I learned to control my own thoughts by connecting to God.
God became someone to rely on to guide me through the new challenges life brought me. Talking to God is like talking on the phone, you can’t see Him, but through your words of prayer, there is a connection. No matter the time of day, God ‘picks up the phone’. He calls us: “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you”. We do this by praying to our God to establish that relationship we have with Him.
When praying, you ask for things, you pray for others, but God doesn’t always answer our prayers. Not always what we pray for is good for ourselves since we are blind-sided by commercial media. What we read or hear in the media influences on what we believe God can help us achieve. He gives us the free will to be able to choose to be good, but when we don’t, we thank Him for confession to get on the track of living a prayerful life.