Through prayer, we share our hopes, fears and our most difficult questions with God.  He knows all that is held deep within our heart and wants us to seek Him in prayer.

What does God desire from our prayers?

Jeremiah 29:12 says “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” 

God is “a searcher of the desires of the heart.”  The Lord doesn’t seek sparkly words and grand gestures.  Within a humble and prayerful heart, God finds joy. In a season of rejoicing, our prayers express love and gratitude for God’s goodness. We whisper, “Lord, thank you for this beautiful day and for all the happiness I found inside of it!”  In the eye of a storm, our prayers painstakingly search for God’s grace to help us through.

Like Christ’s Apostles, we also may encounter uncertainty as to how we should we pray.  At times, finding the words to express all that we want God to know can be hard.  When the words we want to say cannot be found, do as the Apostles did.  In Luke 11:1 we read “And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray…” The Apostles overhead the Lord praying out loud, and wanted to pray just as He did.  They wanted to know the words they overheard Jesus speak.  “Teach us to pray Lord.” Our Lord answered, giving us the Our Father Prayer.

In the treatise “The Lord’s Prayer,” St. Cyprian of Carthage states that there is no greater prayer than the one taught by Christ Himself. “For what prayer can be more spiritual than that which was given us by Christ, by whom the Holy Spirit was sent to us, what prayer to the Father can be truer, than that which was sent forth from the Son, who is truth, out of His mouth?”

Through the “Our Father” Christ makes His love known to all of humanity, calling every soul to God in heaven.  God is not only His father, but shows us that God is “Our” Father.  Through the Lord’s prayer, we learn how to make ourselves present to God, asking for His kingdom in heaven to come – here – now – on the earth with us.  After asking that God’s will be done on earth, Christ teaches us what to pray for each day – which is our daily bread.  Nourishment not for always, just for today.

In the Lord’s prayer, he also teaches us to pray for forgiveness of wrongdoings, compassion to forgive others and for the protection against evil.

So when searching for the words to pray, reach for the one Christ Himself gave us – the Lord’s Prayer.

And then seek God in humility – with all your heart.