A person who begins his journey to the salvation of the soul through the knowledge of faith, involuntarily wonders why people prayed to God. What did they beg Him for?
All the peoples that have ever lived on our planet knew the secret words of appeal to higher powers (to God), which were passed down from generation to generation. These words were called a prayer.
Orthodox Christians revere Jesus Christ. They know how to pray to God, how to ask His forgiveness and atone for their sin.
Forgiveness in Prayer
To atone for your sins before other people, you must attend worship services in churches. 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 vain 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 people's hearts.
Merciful God
In order for Him to hear a prayer, one must rely on the postulate, which says that it is from the heart that evil thoughts come that defile a person. Sinful thoughts are generated deep in the subconscious, and then they flow into bad actions.
Before you pray 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 done a bad deed. Then he must admit his guilt and not repeat what he did.
Faith in the mercy of God will entail forgiveness if a person laments and repents of everything he has done.
To show the sincerity of your requests for forgiveness for bad deeds, you need to give alms to those in need. This is how compassion and mercy are shown to the sick and impoverished sufferers.
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 repentance, the sinner needs reconciliation with his enemies. In this difficult task, the icon of the Mother of God, called the "Seven Arrows", helps a lot.
Three common prayers will help the penitent:
- Repentance and forgiveness.
- About forgiveness of offenses.
- Prayer to God for forgiveness.
You can look at the sky and pray to God, if it pleases the one who prays for the purity and sincerity of his words. The Lord was crucified on the Cross, thus performing an act of forgiveness for 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 if it's better to do it from a book or in your own words.
Modern theologians have an 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 the prayer books will be largely incomprehensible.
Prayer should be non-standard and sincere. As soon as they begin to soullessly proofread what they have written, they may immediately feel the form, not the content, but no one needs this.
It is important to know that prayer can even discredit a person. This is one of the biggest dangers that are present not only for beginners. It turns out that sometimes those people who spend most of their lives in God's temple begin to reproduce prayer as a kind of standard form that is given in church books. As a result, they get a set of words, because there is no sincere appeal to God - reasonable, conscious and attentive.
Useful prayer
We often hear about the need to pray more often. But do not forget about a very simple thing, that it was prayer books (people who ask God for others) who ascended to Heaven. They died, sinking to the very bottom of hell.
Whatis the correct prayer according to the teachings of the holy fathers? St. Ignatius Brianchaninov beautifully expounded this in his writings. A person who considers himself an Orthodox believer must have books related to God. This is necessary in order to cast a glance at them more often and receive pangs of conscience, which will make you open and read these pages at least sometimes.
The statements of Bryanchaninov's teachings should be studied and try to read not a hundred sheets at a time, but two or three pages. Such exercises are edifying to the mind, heart and soul.
Reading with attention
Ignaty 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 be chattered. Reading requires attention and repentance. Where there are no these three components, there can be no benefit, there is only harm. You don't even talk to a person like that.
God doesn't just listen to words. He understands the thoughts of those who address him. No need to try to hide something from Him. It is impossible to arrange some kind of theatrical performance (shouting, sobbing). God will hear a quiet sincere prayer.
People who tried to portray repentance and humility, which they did not experience, then fell into pride and vanity.
An amazing incident is known that happened to the schemamonk Seraphim of the Glinsk Hermitage. Once a familiar monk came to him and said: "Father, I have unceasing prayer." To this, Father Seraphim replied: “You should remember thatyou don't have any prayer. You just get used to certain words the way others get used to swearing.”
Full attention to God
Many people have a very logical question about how to pray to God. Before whom to read prayers if no one is visible? Here we need to decide who we are addressing, to God or to some kind of soulless force, before which we need to read words that are incomprehensible to us. In the second case, there is no prayer. The person just does it out of habit.
Therefore, some confessors say that it is better to read fewer prayers, but with attention. If it is difficult to concentrate for a long time, you need to determine for yourself some interval, for example, 15 minutes. In order not to be distracted by the clock, you can start an alarm clock and do your pious work with attention and reverence. 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.
A brief note
Experienced people say that you can pray in any position and in any place. This should be done every time you think about God. After all, no one prevents us from saying a short Jesus prayer: "Lord, have mercy." Some of us say these words many times a day without attaching much importance to them.
We pray a lot and ask God for help in our needs and illnesses, so that he will quickly save us from all kinds of 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. Let Your will be done, not mine.”
The Danger of Prayer
The Lord, seeing the attention and reverence with which a person treats Him, will surely give him help and spiritual support.
Some people live for decades but get nothing from God. You can continuously go to the temple and recite prayers, but forget about the above conditions, depriving yourself of the mercy and gifts of God. It is very important. You must accept the conditions described above, as they are urgently needed.
It should also be noted that many people go crazy from wrong prayer, fall into pride.
How to pray to God at home
About 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 Kings for something insignificant. It humiliates Him. He who thirsts for corruptible earthly goods stirs up the indignation of the Heavenly King against himself."
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 according to the prayer book. Some church leaders think that this is not so important.
Prayer in your home can be perceived as homework at school, which must be done by yourself. Only then will he be useful.
You can pray in your own words. Some recommend following the rule from Seraphim of Sarov, which includes reading in the morning and evening the prayers “Our Father” (three times), “Hail to the Mother of God Virgin” (three times) andCreed (One time).
This is part of the answer to the question of how to properly pray to God at home.
Canons and creativity
The morning and evening prayer rule that we have came to us from the Middle Ages. In those distant times it was composed by ascetic monks. It includes texts of appeals to God from various collections. The monks used to wake up at midnight to pray. It was called the Midnight Office. Now it's morning.
The proposed Orthodox collection of morning and evening prayers is very successful, but you need to understand that it is only recommended, not mandatory. Repeating the same sentences can get boring if you do it day after day, year after year. Then the person will cease to pronounce appeals to God sincerely. To prevent this from happening, the rule can be diluted a little.
To answer the question of how to pray to God at home, I would like to add that many reverend fathers offered to be creative in this action. Prayer is not just reading some church rules. This is a conversation with God. This is how we should treat it. Then no one will say: “I pray to God to help me, but He does not hear me.”
Warmness of the 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 prayersprimary: "Glory to you, Lord" and "King of Heaven." Not everyone knows them by heart, so you can use the book.
How to pray for God to hear your prayer? You can read small fragments from the evening or morning rules. At the same time, you should try to think about 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. Prayer rules are not to be read, but to warm the heart with the warmth of prayer.
It is for this purpose that collections have been created, which include 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 in your own words, read the canons or akathists of the glorified saints - Blessed Xenia, Tryphon of Spiridon, John of Kronstadt, John of Russia and others.
During the existence of man on earth, prayer has become necessary to receive grace from God, through which a person's character can change. He becomes mentally rich and strong, persistent and courageous. He begins to be kinder to the people around him, can prevent another from committing a sinful act, tell about the nature of the origin of good and evil, show how to do reasonable things.
