How much do you thiests find it important to talk to God? Do you feel it as important to do everyday? Do you do it many times per day? Do you say something before every time you eat, or after every good thing that happen to you? **************************************************** 10-06-06, 01:59 PM VelvetVoice Ideally, everything I do should be prefaced with a prayer, but I am a total slacker with a regular schedule lately. I pray in the shower, on the way to and from work, first thing in the morning at my desk, before meals, and when the memory of someone who needs prayer crosses my mind.
10-06-06, 04:14 PM bik74 The minimum/compulsory worship for muslims is 5 per day (that includes prayers). It all depends with how much concentration one is praying and if it is having the right effect (abstaining from forbidden things).
10-08-06, 03:12 AM tsaeb Prayer is not a talking to God but a talking with God: prayer is a dialogue, not a monologue. So knowing that God's mouth and the mouth's of angels may possibly spew forth at any time is what the scripture which tells us to pray without ceasing means.
I try to pray before I get out of bed and whenever I am led to pray or feel that I am walking far from God and need to be brought back to Him and out of the depressing world, and sometimes I will pray for long periods of time when I need intricate answers, like how to fight a lawsuit or how to write a book or how to get a healing as how to unload pain which someone/something caused me.
10-08-06, 08:08 AM Airedale
quote: Originally posted by jusork: How much do you thiests find it important to talk to God?
Speaking as a biblical theist, praying is to the Christian what water is to fish. "Pray" gets a bad rap in our society; reminds me of a quote I read this morning by T.R. Glover: "Salvation, like Grace and all the great words, has suffered from being handled by little people."
As Yeshua taught Nicodemus, a man must be "reborn" spiritually, and that rebirth, also known as regeneration, is a gift from Heaven. No man can earn nor merit it.
In gratitude for such a gift, bairns of God soon discover they are constantly seeking to filter their life's experiences from an "above the sun's" perspective (as versus King Solomon's lament about "under the sun" everything remains fatalistically the same doom and gloom). Prayer for the biblical theist is coram deo ("before the Face of God" intimacy.
quote: Do you feel it as important to do everyday? Do you do it many times per day? Do you say something before every time you eat, or after every good thing that happen to you?
For bairns of God, prayer is not a legalistic duty. It is not a requirement to attain God's mercies. It is not a yoke of obligation. It is not a kind of mental gymnastic exercise "to get through" in order to feel better. It is not a kind of superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
So, to answer your question, prayer is not really about outward activities but an attitude of loving one's Heavenly Father and enjoying the bairn-father relationship for which we were created. Earlier in my walk with the Lord, I would feel guilty whenever I fell asleep at the end of a day, silently sharing with my Father what was on my heart; then I read a book by a believer who asked, "What can be better than for a believer to fall asleep in the arms of His Heavenly Father?"
My prayers are like punctuation in this post. They are scattered throughout the day, from morning to night. Sometimes they are no more than wordless groans (as Ezekial experienced when God told him to not mourn his wife's death as a visible metaphor for the Babylonian exiles); I have Paul's assurance in Romans 8 that God's Holy Spirit presents my requests before the throne and makes them acceptable.
What joy. What peace.
10-08-06, 08:18 AM juanruiz
quote: bairns of God
When did you move to Scotland, Aire?
10-08-06, 08:30 AM Airedale As a postscript, let me add that there are many readers who may have an estranged relationship with their earthly father, so my above post may not resonate at all. If that is the case, then ask yourself who exemplifies for you the ideal friend/mentor; that is who God becomes to the believer as he/she tarries on this earth (which is often why in Scripture the believer's relationship with God is pictured as a "walk": walk in the Spirit, OT believer who walks with God, etc).
JR: I am a thrifty soul (too Scotch?)
10-08-06, 12:00 PM juanruiz
quote: (too Scotch?)
That's two Scotches, preferably malt and neat, please.
10-08-06, 03:47 PM frankvan What kind of a poll is this? No provision for votes, and that pseudo-theist, JR being allowed in ? I never pray. I gave it up some 60 or so years ago. Frankly, I could never understand why any god worth his salt would want, or need the cacophony of billions of sycophants chanting gibberish mixed with brown-nosing. Of course, that's just my opinion. Wink
10-08-06, 04:29 PM juanruiz
quote: and that pseudo-theist, JR being allowed in ?
I thought anyone could belly-up to the bar.
10-09-06, 08:24 AM Tulula Anytime, all the time, when I wake up, when I go to sleep, sometimes not at all, never enough . . . 10-09-06, 09:04 AM Elexina
quote: I thought anyone could belly-up to the bar.
Is that another definition of prayer? If that's the case, I pray quite regularly!
10-09-06, 01:36 PM Bibleman I pray several times a day, at no particular time, except prior to meals and bedtime, meetings for worship, personal study of the Bible, and so forth.
I believe one should pray as well upon arising. Unfortunately, my brain does not usually arise until I have been up two or three hours. (And consumed a minimum of two cups of coffee!)
quote: Originally posted by jusork: How much do you thiests find it important to talk to God? Do you feel it as important to do everyday? Do you do it many times per day? Do you say something before every time you eat, or after every good thing that happen to you?
Talk to God is so important then to live. We must pray to God in every moment, as much as we have hunger. If God touch me to say something before eat, I do.
PS : sorry about my english!
11-21-06, 09:45 AM Georgia85 Pretty much non-stop throughout the day. I like to have converstations with God all the time. It gives me peace and comfort. And definately every time I get behind the steering wheel of my car!
11-22-06, 05:06 AM tsaeb This day before Thanksgiving, I am getting the present of knowing that I am not the only one here eligible to be called delusional for believing in God and the blessings of speaking with Him. Smile
11-22-06, 09:13 AM VelvetVoice I'm right with you there, tsaeb. Happy Turkey Day for all my fellow turkeys!
Oh, and Happy Birthday, JR.
I am thankful for many things, not the least of which is all the things I've learned about myself in the past year, my strengths and weaknesses, and my trials about my health and my job. I thank God for my family, also. Remember to give thanks for everything in your life.
1 Thessalonians 5:16(AJ)Rejoice always; 17(AK)pray without ceasing; 18in everything (AL)give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 19(AM)Do not quench the Spirit; 20do not despise (AN)prophetic [c]utterances. 21But (AO)examine everything carefully; (AP)hold fast to that which is good; 22abstain from every [d]form of evil.
11-22-06, 09:34 AM juanruiz
quote: Oh, and Happy Birthday, JR.
Thank you.
11-22-06, 12:08 PM Julieta Martinez I don´t pray as much as I should. I usually pray only when something bad is happening and I need help.
And I have just converted to catholocism and BOY do they pray a lot!
11-22-06, 01:45 PM juanruiz How often do you pray?
quote: And I have just converted to catholocism
What were you before?
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