1Like, 1Prayer!
It’s hard to move forward when you don’t know where you’re headed or why. God’s plan gives us the answers to life’s most basic questions like, "Where did I come from?" "What’s my purpose here?" And, "What happens when I die?" Knowing the answers gives us hope and helps us find peace and joy, but we can't deny the fact that one thing that makes this life so hard sometimes is that we’re out of God’s physical presence. Not only that, but we can’t remember our pre-earth life which means we have to operate by faith rather than sight. God didn’t say it would be easy, but He promised His spirit would be there when we needed Him. Even though it feels like it sometimes, we’re not alone in our journey. We tend to pray always when we are faced with such unsurmountable problems at hand and sometimes we came up with superficial ideas on our own on how to somewhat talked to God, like for example, before I think that praying or prayer itself is only a device that I should come up or formulate by myself to be able to talk to God, thus my prayer life becomes like a planned routine every day that I will recite this kind of prayers in an orderly fashion with a given amount, also I attend worship/prayer meetings that I think will help in my religious life not knowing the fact that I am doing it wrong all the time because as what St Jean of Chantal said, “The best method of prayer is not to have any, because prayer is not obtained by methods or devices but through grace.” Because prayer is simply just talking to God and giving all ourselves in front of him, it is just like setting ourselves free from our earthly desires so that we will not focus about ourselves but rather with God so that we can give Him space in our hearts to put His grace inside. St Theresa of Jesus affirms that “all the edifice of prayer is based on humility.” That is, on the conviction that we can do nothing by ourselves, thus whatever skills or talents we have, we must not be full of ourselves because God alone is the one who gave us those abilities and what makes our life worthwhile and exciting. He is the only source that good can happen in our lives, so we must be humble so that we can have the capacity to calmly accept one's basic destituteness and to trust god in everything, so that we do not pray for pleasure or benefits drawn from the act, but to please God.
Many people today are thirsty for God and feel a desire for an intense, personal prayer life that is deep and ongoing. But they encounter obstacles that prevent them from following the path seriously, and especially from persevering on it, because they think they are the only ones who are doing it. We must not be like that because Jesus does not address a select group, but everyone without exception when he says, Watch, then, praying at all times (Lk 21:36) which only means that our prayer life will progress and bear it fruits from the efforts and dispositions of each individual. Therefore we should do everything in our capabilities and leave the rest to God on what may happen.
In Time for God, author Jacques Philippe mainly concentrates on mental prayer: prayer that consists of facing solitude and silence for a time in order to enter into intimate, loving communion with him. Practicing this kind of prayer regularly is considered to be an indispensable path that gives access to genuine Christian life—a path to knowing and loving God that empowers us to respond to his call to holiness addressed to each individual. But let us be true to ourselves, mainly doing these things every day is surely hard, well for myself if I will continue to devote my whole self in God's call to holiness I might find it boring and a waste of time at some point, maybe because of the particular reason that being devoted was a difficult task for persons like me who was used to be an easy go-lucky being that just go with the flow of life and enjoy it. What I am saying here is that the satisfaction, pleasure and happiness that I can gain in an instant with my previous self will surely haunt me down and make me crave like a crazy person. We are prideful deep within our heart and that will become the greatest obstacle in our journey through and with God, because that pride is causing us to find happiness by ourselves, taking all the risk and doing all sort of things just to attain that simple satisfaction, in my case I already had done enough of bad things, I hurt a lot of people and as of now I am regretting those times that I am like that, thus I had become a lonely person whose main happiness lies by watching animes and shows that give me simple joys in a short amount of time. We are beings that made great mistakes in our lives, and unsure of what to do next we confined ourselves into a solitude state whereas our hearts will little by little be closed for the matter we called Love and if that point will come to us, opening it again will be a miracle. Well we should not worry about these things because you know miracles are real and the main proof of that is God, even if we can't see him directly we can feel him, it is like just our hearts that we can't see but we know it is there because we can feel it and even if you are numb enough to feel your own heartbeat, others can hear and feel it, so even if I or you can't feel God's presence in our lives, maybe it’s time that we sought help from others and in that way let us all together persevere in having a deep and everlasting relationship with God and we can only do it by means of praying because prayer is the only way that we are intimately, as what had been said in the book, “looking at God and God looking at us!” These are some ways that I thought on how we can overcome the challenge in our prayer life. A call to holiness is not only for the chosen ones but also for all of us, it is the struggle of all of us, so why not we help each other in conquering this challenge and faced God with our solid faith that is born with our trust and fidelity to the life that He had given us. To pray is to know, love, and serve God! That is the main point of the book, thus if we like God, we are praying, because if we like a person, it will develop to love, a love that makes us to offer willingly ourselves to them, which is the greatest prayer we can do. One like will change our lives forever. So learn to like God now!