For a true believer, prayer is a way of direct communication with God, while questions about whether God hears prayers and how He answers them usually does not arise. But for someone who has just embarked on the path of faith, the answers to these questions can be very important.
How to pray correctly
Prayer communication of a person with God is very personal, while it is important to understand that nothing can be hidden from the Almighty. Moreover, the very attempt to hide something, to disguise it will work against a person, as it will clearly demonstrate his insincerity. God knows a person better than a person knows himself, therefore the main rule of prayer is to be extremely sincere.
You can and should use well-known prayers, but in no case should you forget about a simple conversation with God - when you speak to Him in your own words, sincerely expressing your request. You can even talk to God when you go to bed. Your recumbency will not be disrespectful to God - what matters most is your desire to talk to Him. When you lie in complete silence, your prayer can be especially sincere.
It is important to understand one very subtle point: prayer to God should not be filled with despair and lamentation. A person who sincerely believes in God should not and cannot despair, no matter what difficult situation he or someone close to him finds himself in. A prayer filled with crying and tears is a prayer of unbelief. Correct prayer, even with tears in your eyes, is filled with faith in the omnipotence of God, in His goodness and mercy. There is no despair in it - there is hope and faith, gradually giving way to joy. Joy in prayer is one of the most important indications that your prayer is being heard and you will be helped.
God's Answer to Prayers
The joy already mentioned above, which at some point arises during prayer, is one of the answers of God. They will help you - but how? Unfortunately or fortunately, God's answer to man's prayers is far from always the way he is expected. This is due to the fact that God will never send a person that will harm him. Even the most desperate prayers will not force God to give a person what he asks, if the result of finding what he is asking for is negative.
That is why true believers, when asking God for something, always understand that a prayer may remain unfulfilled or it will not be fulfilled in the way they wanted it to. But here the true humility of the believer is manifested - the ability to accept any result in advance, to come to terms with the will of God. Whatever happens, man knows - it was so pleasing to God. Therefore, he simply resigns himself to this, not making claims to God about an unfulfilled request.
There is one more point worth mentioning. Sometimes a believer during prayer very clearly feels that God is here, with him, His presence can be very obvious. But sometimes a person prays and realizes that God is not around. Does this mean that God has left him and will not hear his prayer? Of course not, any prayer will still be answered - otherwise it simply cannot be. But God sometimes leaves a person for a while. Maybe so that he could better feel the difference between prayer in the presence of God and prayer without Him.
It also happens that a person is simply very hard at heart. And he prays not in order to ask for something material, but to remove this burden from the soul. If there is faith in prayer, then after a while a person begins to feel how the heaviness leaves the soul. Moreover, sometimes it goes away almost instantly. Instead, a quiet flame of joy appears in the soul. It flares up more and more until the person is enveloped in genuine bliss. This is one of the options for direct communication between man and God - and God's answer to prayer addressed to Him.
