Spirituality and Prayer

Jared Byas continued our conversations by coupling spirituality with prayer. Here is what he shared with Living Room...

“The earthly minded person thinks and imagines that when he prays, the important thing, the thing he must concentrate upon, is that God should hear what he is praying for. And yet in the true, eternal sense it is just the reverse: the true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed fro, but when the person prying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God is asking for” (Soren Kierkegaard, 345).

What is the purpose of prayer?
Can there be more than one purpose?

Grant me, O Lord, to know and understand…whether knowledge should precede prayer. For how can one pray to you unless one knows you? If one does not know you, or may pray not to you, but to something else. Or is it rather the case that we should pray to you in order that we may come to know you? ~St. Augustine

What do you think Augustine is asking?
What do you think the answer is?

“That with him the set times of prayer were not different from other times; that he retired to pray, according to the directions of his superior, but that he did not want such retirement, nor ask for it, because his greatest business did not divert him from God”.

How are we to view prayer?
Is it a “spiritual exercise” meant only for sacred time and space or as something else?

1. Surely God is good to Israel,
   To those who are pure in heart!
2. But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling,
   My steps had almost slipped.
3. For I was envious of the arrogant
   As I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4. For there are no pains in their death,
   And their body is fat.
5. They are not in trouble as other men,
   Nor are they plagued like mankind.
6. Therefore pride is their necklace;
   The garment of violence covers them.
7. Their eye bulges from fatness;
   The imaginations of their heart run riot.
8. They mock and wickedly speak of oppression;
   They speak from on high.
9. They have set their mouth against the heavens,
   And their tongue parades through the earth.
10. Therefore his people return to this place,
    And waters of abundance are drunk by them.
11. They say, "How does God know?
    And is there knowledge with the Most High?"
12. Behold, these are the wicked;
    And always at ease, they have increased in wealth.
13. Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure
    And washed my hands in innocence;
14. For I have been stricken all day long
    And chastened every morning.
15. If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
    Behold, I would have betrayed the generation of Your children.
16. When I pondered to understand this,
    It was troublesome in my sight
17. Until I came into the sanctuary of God;
    Then I perceived their end.
18. Surely You set them in slippery places;
    You cast them down to destruction.
19. How they are destroyed in a moment!
    They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors!
20. Like a dream when one awakes,
    O Lord, when aroused, You will despise their form.
21. When my heart was embittered
    And I was pierced within,
22. Then I was senseless and ignorant;
    I was like a beast before You.
23. Nevertheless I am continually with You;
    You have taken hold of my right hand.
24. With Your counsel You will guide me,
    And afterward receive me to glory.
25. Whom have I in heaven but You?
    And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
26. My flesh and my heart may fail,
    But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27. For, behold, those who are far from You will perish;
    You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.
28. But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
    I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
    That I may tell of all Your works.