Prayer is a person's conversation with God or with a saint. During Christian prayer, the believer feels the direct presence of the Living God, who hears him, loves him and helps him. During prayer, addressed to Christ, a person reveals God for himself through the image of Jesus Christ, overcomes many barriers that exist between God and man. And in order to successfully overcome these obstacles, in order to reveal God for yourself, in order for prayer to be heard, you must follow a few simple rules.
A true Christian should pray as often as possible. Ideally, a person's entire life should be permeated with prayer. However, most people are not able to pray all day long, so you should try to find time to communicate with God as often as possible, even if only for a short time.
Before you get up or think about the day ahead, take a few minutes to pray in the morning. Read the prayer with thoughts of God, not of the day ahead. Ask for God's blessing on the day that begins.
Try to pray as often as possible throughout the day. If you feel bad - pray, if you feel good - pray too, if you are worried about someone - pray for him. Even if the prayers are short, consisting of several phrases, it is important to turn everything that happens during the day into prayer.
Before going to bed, remember everything you did, ask God for forgiveness for all your misdeeds and sins, thank God for all the good things that happened during the day. Ask for help and blessings for the night ahead.
Do not justify your unwillingness to pray with busyness and overwork. On the one hand, undoubtedly, the rhythm of life of a modern person is incomparable with the rhythm of life of people in antiquity. But on the other hand, there are pauses in everyone's life when one can remember God: waiting for a bus or tram, taking the subway, etc.
Prayer Rule
The prayer rule is the prayers that a Christian reads daily. For some, the prayer rule takes several minutes, for others, several hours. It all depends on faith, on spiritual striving for God and on the availability of free time
It is very important for a Christian to fulfill his prayer rule so that there is regularity and constancy in his prayers. At the same time, a person should by all means avoid turning this rule into a formality. The famous 19th century ascetic Theophan the Recluse advised the prayer rule to be calculated not by the number of prayers, but by the time that the Christian is ready to devote to God. That is, it is much better to devote half an hour a day to prayers than to subtract a certain amount of them. It doesn't matter how many prayers are read during this time. You can even replace prayer with reading the Psalter or the Gospel. The main thing is that every word does not elude attention, that the consciousness is focused on God, and the heart is open to Christ.
Prayers in church and at home
If a person does not live alone, but with his family, it is necessary to try to pray with his relatives. Joint prayer strengthens the family, the spiritual kinship of its members, forms a common understanding and worldview. Family prayer is very helpful for children. Do not think that when a son or daughter grows up, they themselves will decide whether to believe in God or not. The fact is that someone who from childhood is accustomed to living without a religious upbringing subsequently finds it very difficult to accustom himself to prayers. And for those who have received a charge of religiosity from childhood, it will be easy to return to God even if they leave Christ.
Together with home prayers, every Christian should attend church. This is necessary in order to feel like a part of the church community and find salvation together with other Christians. Church prayer has a special meaning. Already at the moment of entering the temple, a person is immersed in the atmosphere of collective prayer, his personal prayer merges with the prayers of many people. The services held in churches are unusually rich in content, which greatly contributes to prayer, the mood of a person in the right way, for the right thoughts.
Therefore, it is imperative that, at least once a week, a Christian is obliged to attend church, immerse himself in the element of divine services, and perform prayers in church.
