Prayer is a person's appeal to God. Prayer to the Lord God for help

Almost all people who believe in God pray. But many feel their prayers remain unheard.

Jesus taught us not to repeat the same memorized phrases in our prayers. He said, “When you pray, do not repeat the same thing” (Matthew 6:7). If we want God to hear us, we need to pray as he pleases. To do this, we need to find out what God's will is and pray in accordance with it. 1 John 5:14 says, “Whatever we ask according to his [God’s] will, he hears us.”

Dear forum members, what kind of prayers do you think God hears? How to contact him correctly? What can and cannot be asked for? What to say and what not to...

How often do you have to turn to God at work and in life? And...do doctors believe in God?

More and more often we hear from doctors: “We did everything we could. Now our hope is only in the will of God.” And everyone begins to pray for recovery...

More and more often we see a priest in a hospital, standing at the bedside of a patient, confessing to him...

In the courtyard of our hospital there is a small church where you can pray and light candles for the health of the patient...

I think everyone, without exception, turns to God, especially in critical situations.

Several years ago, in one of the departments of our medical unit, a room was allocated for the priest from our church. He came several times a week and his visits were very popular with the grannies. But a conflict arose - the grandmothers, instead of morning procedures (taking tests, insulin injections), dragged themselves into this...

Sermons How to Get an Answer to Prayer

Norval Hayes

Have you ever wondered why your prayers are not answered even after you have been praying for months or even years?

I myself have thought about this more than once. I used to say, “I don't understand You, Jesus. Why don't You answer my prayer? I should get it, but it doesn't happen. Why don’t You answer my prayer?” One day, as I was reading the Bible, the Lord began to explain this to me. He began to unfold this message in my mind's eye. Today I see it as clearly as if it had always been a part of me.

How to contact God

Often in your conversations you use the words: “turn to God”, “converted Christians”, etc. All Christians turn to God. It turns out that you are breaking into open doors. When we pray, we all turn to God, not to Satan...

From your letter I see that we have different concepts on this issue. In your opinion, every time a person says: “Oh, Lord!” - he turns to God. But this doesn't always happen. You can be “converted” all your life and die unconverted. Let's open the Bible and see together what God means when He says: “Turn to Me, all you ends of the earth” (Isaiah 45:22).

All people by nature are sinners, opponents of God and “children of wrath,” as Scripture says, until they turn to God for forgiveness, until they repent and enter into communication with Him. It is possible to walk away from the world, turn away from idols, have the fear of God and not be converted. A converted Christian means born again. Just as a born child immediately shows signs of life, so...

All-seeing

Do you think requests addressed to God have a real basis or is it self-deception and self-hypnosis? Have you ever had a case when something very desired was fulfilled no matter what, precisely because of turning to God? Georgy

Of course, there were and are such cases. You can believe in God or not, it doesn’t change anything. It's still there. Because it’s even scary to imagine how the world could arise on its own, without the intervention of any external forces. This is simply impossible. We all live according to an initially given program, and the entire Universe exists according to given specific laws. Someone had to create all this and establish these laws. And if so, we always have someone to rely on and someone to turn to for help. Sometimes you don’t even need to ask for anything, it’s enough just to wish for your wish to come true….

In any magical tradition, one cannot do without certain forces that patronize the tradition, the practices of this tradition. These can be Gods, entities or spirits, depending on the tradition.

Gods have a place in runic magic. Moreover, runic magic and runes themselves are essentially knowledge that Odin once received.
Working with the Gods, of course, is not mandatory, but how far can you go without honoring the Gods, without turning to them? The gods can provide support, knowledge, strength, protection, and in some cases even solve our problems for us. Working with the Gods always gives great results, and with regular work, your strength will increase many times over, the runes will work amazingly powerfully, and the results of the work will manifest themselves with amazing speed. In general, the prospects for working with the Gods are truly limitless.

It's all about...

In most world religions, the main form of making a request to God is prayer. Prayer is, in essence, an ardent request, that is, a plea for help. However, even true believers often have questions about how to ask God for help, and what exactly can you ask him for? We will try to answer these questions.

How to ask God for help correctly

In order for your prayers to the Almighty to be heard by him, you need to know how to ask God for help correctly. To do this, a number of conditions must be met. Namely:

The most important condition for turning to God is faith. Therefore, before asking God for help, you need to be absolutely sure that he exists. It is unlikely that God will help anyone who doubts his existence. A believer does not necessarily have to be a parishioner of a particular church; it is enough that he has his own idea of God in his soul and believes in him. You need to turn to God in a moment of emotional impulse, that is...

Does the Lord like it?
when are He addressed as “Lord” and “God”? question asked by Oleg, Vladivostok

Oleg asked a very interesting question. We often do not think about how and with what words to turn to our Lord in prayer, and in churches, as a rule, attention is not focused on this.
Does God like the way we approach him? And if not, how would He want us to address Him?

The fact is that the Holy Scriptures, revealing the personality and character of God, also reveal to us His names. And there are so many of them that there is enough for all occasions. For example, when referring to God as the Creator, we can call him Elohim; turning to Him as a Healer - Jehovah Rapha; as to the giver of peace - Jehovah Shalom, and so on.

Also, there is an amazing verse in the Bible:
Hosea 2:16-17 “And it will come to pass in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me, ‘My husband,’ and you will no longer call Me, ‘Baali.’ And I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and their names will be remembered no more.”
…

Human civilizations have always worshiped gods. One or more, but certainly omnipotent. As a rule, all the deities created by the human imagination had and still have a powerful character, and their attitude towards a person directly depends not only on his behavior, but also on the disposition of the spirit of the gods themselves. That is why seeking help from God, hoping for his favor is an ancient universal tradition that has become an unconscious habit. And although, understanding the illusory nature of these hopes, folk wisdom bequeathed to us, relying on God, not to make mistakes ourselves, the desire for protection and patronage from above has remained in our subconscious even today, in the age of scientific experiments and technical achievements.

By the way, it was this cognitive progress that not only did not refute, but also confirmed the assumptions about the existence of some higher power capable of influencing what is happening in the physical world. And strengthened the faith of those people for whom faith in divine support has always been indisputable...

From the book “Secrets of Family Happiness” by V.F. Cherepanova

ABOUT PRAYER TO GOD.

HOW TO PRAY CORRECTLY.

Many people pray to God, pray, sometimes they pray for years - but God does not hear them! He does not accept their prayers and does not fulfill them, and therefore nothing in these people’s lives changes for the better. Why? Yes, because these people do not know how to pray, or they pray carelessly, hastily, just to quickly read out their prayer rule and go about their own business. And most importantly, they are indifferent to God and therefore do not want to learn to really pray, most often because of their laziness, because they feel that real prayer is a lot of work. They do not understand that prayer is an amazing and wonderful gift that the Lord gives only to those people who strive for good, strive to be good people, strive to live honestly, treat all people well and do selflessly good deeds, who sought and found God who have loved God, believe Him, trust Him,...

The appeal of man to God, and of God to man

Yaroslav Vyazovsky

“Turn to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. You will say: how should we turn? Is it possible for a person to rob God? And you are robbing Me. You will say: How are we robbing You? Tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, because you - the whole people - rob Me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me in this, says the Lord of hosts: Will I not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out blessings upon you until there is abundance?”

Book of the prophet Malachi 3:7-10.

Missionaries often have to talk about conversion and encourage people to convert. But what is conversion? We Christians often use words that are understandable to us, but not clear to our unbelieving friends, and we ourselves cannot always explain them. How to turn to God? Why is conversion important? What…

It often happens that a husband and wife are medically healthy, but pregnancy does not occur. They lead an active and healthy lifestyle, eat well, and have no bad habits, but the family remains dysfunctional for a long time. That’s when women think about the fact that physical health is not always the basis for the birth of a baby. Perhaps the reason for childlessness is a non-church marriage, that is, when a couple is not married in a church. Or maybe the woman simply does not have a spiritual blessing from heaven to give birth to a child. That’s when the questions arise for her, which saint should she pray to so that God would send children.

The instinct of motherhood is inherent in every woman from birth. Some manage to get pregnant right away, while others have been knocking on the thresholds of centers and clinics for years in the hope of conceiving a child. Today's developments in medicine make it possible to become pregnant using in vitro fertilization. But not every woman perceives and accepts such a chance. Not everyone can...

When do people turn to God? In difficult life situations, when hope gradually gives way to despair. That's when people remember that there is a God. Not all, of course, but many people are believers “at heart.” Until a certain point.

How to properly turn to God and ask him for help?

One gate play?

Before you find out how to ask God for help so that He hears the petitioner, it is worth answering the question: does God help people in life? It helps, of course, to ask a stupid question. Do people often thank Him for His help before turning again? And here comes an awkward moment, because usually a request for help looks like this: you asked (sometimes tearfully), got what you wanted, and forgot about God until the next necessary moment. There was no room for gratitude. And this is wrong.

From childhood, people are taught to say “thank you” to their parents. God is the Father, how can we not thank Him for fulfilling the request?

How to give thanks?

How to ask God for help? And how can you thank the Savior for your help? It's very simple. You can go to church and order, light a candle in front of the icon of Jesus Christ.

If it is not possible to attend church (precisely because of weakness, and not because of laziness and eternal fussiness), you can read the akathist of gratitude at home. Or thank God in your own words, standing in front of your home iconostasis.

People don't know how to ask

How to ask God for help in love, for example? Don't be shy, first of all. For some reason, people are ashamed to ask their neighbors for help. It’s good if they are not ashamed to turn to the Savior with their requests.

There is no need to be afraid of this. After all, this is your Father. Is it possible that when a person loves his dad, he is embarrassed to contact him? Of course no. It's the same here. God loves everyone and responds to all requests.

A difficult situation

Finding yourself in a difficult situation, a person often doubts whether this is the right thing to do. People get nervous, get stressed, try to consult with loved ones or make decisions on their own. Weighing the pros and cons, they begin to get even more nervous. So what should I do? How to resolve the issue? Ask God for help? Yes, without any embarrassment. Pray to the Savior, entrust Him with the solution to a difficult issue. Who but God knows what is best for your good? Only He guides people through life, helping and protecting them in everything.

Never hesitate to ask God for help in a difficult situation, just like turning to God in general.

Pupils and students

Students and pupils are a separate issue. Are there many among them who turn to God for help? Hardly. Most often, mothers and grandmothers pray for their students. The students themselves either don’t want to, or don’t believe, or don’t understand why this is necessary.

How to ask God for help in studying for your son or daughter? Pray for your student and ask God to help him on his path to acquiring knowledge. And even better - the schoolchild or student himself should ask the Creator for help.

When you ask God for help, it’s somehow not very scary to take a difficult exam or go out to answer in front of a large audience and a strict professor.

Problems at work

It also happens: a person works, tries. But the bosses are unhappy and don’t even try to answer the question of what’s wrong with the work.

Or the boss gives his subordinates a task. They do it extremely poorly, failing miserably. How can you not get angry? How not to yell at your subordinates? How can a subordinate tolerate his boss’s nagging out of nowhere?

Turn to God for help. How to ask God for help in your work? Pray for the softening of the boss’s heart and for help for yourself. It will be useful to pray like this: “Lord, remember King David and all his meekness.” This short prayer helps if the boss is very harsh. By the way, this also applies to students. The professor is angry and sends everyone to re-exam? Say these simple words more often.

Ah, love, love

How to ask God for help in love? Pray that the Lord will give a soul mate if we are talking about a lonely person praying.

If the person asking is married, and for some reason it is cracking, then pray for the preservation of the marriage. Stand in front of the icons more than once, but ask regularly, persistently. It is not for nothing that it is said: “Ask, and it will be given to you.” So ask and knock on the Lord.

Why is it not given?

It happens like this: a person asks, asks, but is not given. At this point he begins to grumble - why? The request seems to be good, it’s not asking for something bad.

How to ask God for help so that this help will come? More precisely, how else can you ask? Why doesn't He always help? For several reasons:

Example one. The mother asks God to take her son away from the sin of drunkenness. He prays and prays, but the son continues to drink. Why is that? Because he is not interested in quitting alcohol. And of course, he does not ask the Lord to help him stop drinking. When a person asks for someone, it is important that both the petitioner and the one for whom they are asking are interested in the same final result.

His request is not good for the person. How so? For example, a person has been wanting to buy a car for a long time and is saving money. And this money is constantly spent on more significant needs: for example, the neighbors upstairs have flooded, repairs need to be done. Or an elderly mother is sick and needs medicine and a high-quality medical examination. You have to reach into your stash. Maybe this car is simply not needed? Who knows what God is protecting the beggar from, not allowing him to save money for his own car? Perhaps He saves a person from a fatal accident? The ways of the Lord, as they say, are inscrutable.

The request will be fulfilled a little later. It happens that a person asks for something, but it is not fulfilled. You just have to humble yourself, and suddenly the request is heard. This is because only God knows whether a person needs what he asks for, and at what moment it is better to give it to the person asking.

How does a person ask?

Choosing a moment amid the daily bustle, humbly standing in front of the home iconostasis and mentally voicing your request - or out loud. Once, usually. And then the person asking waits for his request to be fulfilled. When the Lord does not respond, the person asks again - this time more persistently. And again there is no answer. Then he stops asking altogether, considering that it is pointless.

This is fundamentally wrong. How then to ask God for help correctly?

How should you ask?

This must be done, first of all, with an open heart, without hesitation to resort to God’s help. Ask not just once, but every day when you pray (if you pray). Literally cry out internally to God. How does a child ask something from his parents? Persistently and obviously more than once, especially when he really wants something. So every person should ask in the same way as children ask - persistently and constantly.

Where to ask?

You can turn to the Savior for help at home or in church. In general, there is no shame in resorting to Him everywhere: on the way to work, walking with a child, going shopping. Nobody forbids this.

Most often, people ask for help either in a church or in front of a home iconostasis. Those who regularly go to church know that you can cry out for help both there and there.

Ask for a home

How to ask God for help at home? If it is not possible to get to the temple - due to illness, for example, you should not be embarrassed to pray at home.

When a person, having awakened from sleep, goes to the icons to pray, it would not be amiss to add his request to the prayers after the morning rule. Just before you do this, do not forget to thank God for waking you up and giving you a new day.

On the way to work, instead of listening to music, you can turn mentally to the Savior, again disturb Him with your request.

In the evening, after praying for sleep, thank God for the day you have lived and ask again.

Ask in the temple

It often happens like this: a person enters a church, lights candles, asks for something and leaves, confident that his request will be immediately fulfilled. It doesn't happen that way.

To get anything in life, you need to work hard. In the same way, you need to work hard before God. Go to church on Sundays, attend the liturgy, ideally, confess and receive communion. But this should not be done in order to “bribe” God; it must be done from the heart. And ask, ask, ask again. Knock and it will be opened to you.

Ask the saints

Saints are man's helpers before God. Now, while people walk their earthly path and pray to them, they help. How to ask a saint for help?

For example, there is a desire to prayerfully turn to Matrona of Moscow. Don’t be lazy to read the holy akathist, then ask in your own words. Read the akathist for a while, and after you have received what you want, order a prayer service in the temple and read the akathist in gratitude to Matrona.

If you have the opportunity to go to the relics of a saint, take advantage of it. Bow to the honest remains of the saint of God, ask her for help. The saints have boldness before God and ask for the people living on earth.

A little about communion and confession

As stated above, it is ideal when a person has received communion and confessed. How to achieve the ideal? It's not that difficult actually.

Confession is repentance for your sins. Sincere, and not for show. People must not only understand that they have sinned, but also get rid of this sin in the future. For example, what's the point of repenting of smoking if you don't think about improving. It is clear that you cannot get rid of this sin right away, especially for experienced smokers. Everything is done gradually. At first they smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. After the first confession, they began to smoke five less. And little by little you will achieve complete victory over sin with God’s help.

There are everyday sins that people repent of, reading the rule for the coming sleep. His last prayer is daily repentance. People “bring” more severe sins to church.

What kind of prayer is it to ask God for help? You can pray in your own words, they are sincere and come from the heart.

What about confession? What sins especially disturb the soul? Those should be confessed first. As the soul is cleansed, sins will emerge from memory on their own. Just don’t be embarrassed to tell them to the priest, he’s never heard anything like that before.

You need to go to church (preferably on Saturday evening or Sunday morning) and confess to the priest.

As for the sacrament, it is started only after proper preparation. This is a fast for three days (minimum). It is physical, as for mental fasting - it is abstinence from various entertainment activities, computer games, watching films, listening to music. For spouses, this means abstaining from intimacy for three days before communion.

On Saturday evening you need to read three canons: Jesus Christ, the Most Holy Theotokos and the Guardian Angel. You also need to read the Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus and the procedure for Holy Communion. All these prayers are in prayer books; at worst, if you don’t have a prayer book at home and you can’t buy one at the moment, you can find it on the Internet and print it out.

If a person has completed three days of physical and mental fasting, confession has been completed. Then you need to take a blessing from the priest for communion. How to do it? Just say: “Father, bless me to receive communion.” And if he asks if you are ready, list how you prepared: you fasted and read everything you were supposed to.

Conclusion

So how can you ask God for help? Here are the main aspects you need to know:

You can ask at home and in church.

At home, after reading the morning and evening rules, you should first thank God for allowing you to see a new day, and for allowing you to live another day. Then add your request.

You can turn to the saints with a request. To do this, you should read an akathist to the chosen saint and pester him with a request.

In the temple you need to ask more than once, but go to services and offer prayers along with a request for help.

And most importantly, don’t forget to thank for what you receive.

For God to answer prayer, it is very important to pray correctly. This does not mean Pharisaic correctness and compliance with all the small instructions: how to stand, in front of which icon, in what sequence to read prayers, how to bow correctly. One should not be too afraid of doing something wrong during prayer, much less refuse prayer because of this. God sees our heart, and an occasional mistake will not make us criminals in His eyes.

Correct prayer consists of the correct disposition of spirit and feelings.

Pray with a pure heart

So that God does not make our prayer a sin, you need to pray with a pure heart and deep faith. As they say in Orthodoxy, with boldness, but without impudence. Boldness means faith in the omnipotence of God and that He can forgive the most terrible sin. Insolence is disrespect for God, confidence in His forgiveness.

In order for prayer not to be impudent, we must be ready to accept the will of God, including when it does not coincide with our desires. This is called “cutting off your will.” As the saint wrote, “if a person is not first purified by cutting off his will, then true prayerful action will never be revealed in him.” This cannot be achieved overnight, but we must strive for it.

With what feelings do they pray to God?

According to the Holy Fathers, during prayer there is no need to seek special feelings or spiritual pleasures. Often the prayer of a sinful person, as we all are, is difficult, causing boredom and heaviness. This shouldn’t frighten or confuse you, and you shouldn’t give up prayer because of it. Much more need to be wary of emotional exaltation.

According to Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov, the only feelings that are permissible during prayer are the feeling of one’s unworthiness and reverence for God, in other words, the fear of God.

What words should you use to address the Almighty?

To make it easier to pray and ask God for the right things, saints and simply pious people compiled. They are sanctified by authority, the very words of these prayers are holy.

The Holy Fathers compared the prayer composed by the saints to a tuning fork by which the human soul is tuned during prayer. That's why statutory prayer is more spiritually beneficial than prayer in your own words. However, to her You can add your own requests.

In what language should you pray in church and at home?

Most Orthodox prayers are read in Church Slavonic, with the exception of some prayers compiled in the 19th century and written in Russian. There are Orthodox prayer books in which prayers are given with Russian translation. If it is difficult to pray in Church Slavonic, you can read the translation.

Unlike home prayer, church services are always performed in Church Slavonic. To better understand worship, you can keep before your eyes the text with parallel translation into Russian.

How to pray to saints correctly

Every day during morning prayer, the believer turns to his patron saint - in whose honor the person praying was.

In other Orthodox traditions, not Russian ones, at baptism the name of a saint is not given, but the patron saint is either chosen by the person himself or is the patron saint of the entire family. On the day of celebrating the memory of “your” saint, you can read the main prayers to him - the troparion and kontakion.

Some saints are prayed to for special needs. Then the troparion and kontakion can be read to this saint at any time. If you constantly pray to a saint, it is advisable to have his icon in your house. If you want to pray to some saint in particular, you can go to pray in a temple where there is his icon or a piece of his relics.

How to start and stop praying

Before you start praying, you need to be quiet and mentally concentrate.
Having finished praying, you need a little be in a prayerful position and comprehend the perfect prayer.
At the beginning and end of the prayer you need make the sign of the cross.

Home prayer, like church prayer, has a statutory beginning and ending. They are given in the prayer book.

Prayer rule in Orthodoxy

It is difficult for most people to determine for themselves: some are lazy and pray little, and some take on excessive work and strain their strength.

In order to give the believer guidance, there are prayer rules.

The main and mandatory rules are the morning and evening prayer rules.

What is a prayer rule

The prayer rule (otherwise known as the cell rule) is a clearly established sequence of prayers, intended for daily reading. Prayer rules are read to believers at home outside of worship, in the mornings and evenings. These rules include the basic Orthodox prayers, as well as special morning and evening prayers in which we ask God to forgive our sins and keep us safe throughout the day and night.

The complete prayer rule, morning and evening, is contained in the prayer books. Those who cannot read the full prayer rule can, with the blessing of the priest, read an abbreviated one, which does not include all the prayers.

Brief prayer rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov

If desired, in addition to morning and evening prayers, you can read akathists to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Mother of God and the saints.

On Bright Week (the first week after Easter), morning and evening prayers are replaced by reading the text of the Hours of Holy Pascha.

How to fulfill the prayer rule

Prayer Rule is being done. It read standing or kneeling, in case of illness, you can read while sitting.

Many people, over many years in church, learn morning and evening prayers by heart, but most often they have to pray according to a prayer book.

Before reading the rules, you need to make the sign of the cross. The words of prayers must be said slowly, delving into their meaning. The prayers that make up the rule can be alternated with personal prayers, especially if such a need arose while reading the rule.

Having finished the rule, we should thank God for communication and stay in a prayerful mood for some time, comprehending your prayer.

Orthodox prayer book

The Orthodox prayer book usually contains

main prayers used in and outside of worship
morning and evening prayer rules
canons (penitential, Mother of God, Guardian Angel) and following to Holy Communion, prayers for various occasions

The Psalter may also be attached to the prayer book.

How to Avoid Distractions During Prayer

Many churchgoers and even long-time churchgoers complain that during prayer their minds wander, extraneous thoughts come to mind, old grievances come to mind, blasphemy and obscene words come to mind. Or, conversely, instead of prayer, a desire arises to indulge in theological reflection.

These are all temptations that are inevitable for a person who has not yet achieved holiness. God allows this to happen in order to test a person’s faith and strengthen his resolve to resist temptation.

The only remedy against them is resist, do not give in to them and continue to pray, even if it’s hard to pray and you want to interrupt it.

How to learn to turn to God? Reading prayers according to the prayer book, even if carefully, does not mean turning to Him. Very often you catch yourself simply reading them or, having already memorized them by heart, pronouncing them like some kind of monologues, but not internally addressing them to the Creator. That’s why you’re distracted, your heart is cold, and you force yourself to rise to prayer with difficulty... What needs to be done to make prayer alive and ardent? We are talking about this with Abbot Nektariy (Morozov).

- Father Nektary, turning to God is not at all the same as turning to a person? When we turn to a person, we don’t have this problem - we see the person in front of us, we know the purpose of our appeal and we turn, and this seems completely natural. But going to God is always a problem, always some kind of difficulty.

— I don’t agree with this comparison: turning to a person is no problem, but turning to God is a problem. A huge number of people, when addressing other people, do it in a way that they really shouldn’t do. And the results of such treatment can be quite disastrous. Some people, reading prayers, believe that they are praying, but in fact, as you say, they are not turning to God. But it also happens that a person turns to a person and says to him: I need this and that from you. But there is no heartfelt contact between the person who turns and the one to whom he turns. A person who is asked for something in this way can only do it by virtue of his Christian mercy and kindness. And if he did not fulfill our request, it was because of our hardness of heart. We need to learn equally - both how to address God and how to address a person.

Before answering the question of how to learn to turn to God and people, it must be said: a person can only learn what he wants to learn. If there is a desire, then there will not be any special difficulties. Why? Because if a person feels the need for God, the need for His help, he will look for a way to receive this help, to be worthy of God’s mercy. Every person who believes in God knows that you can ask God for help in prayer and that you need to ask in such a way that your own heart responds. This is how learning happens - the person himself, with his heart, responds to the words of prayers. The whole point is desire.

— In the desire to turn to God and find His help?

- Certainly. Sometimes a strange thing happens: a person seems to be a believer, an Orthodox Christian, but when something happens in his life, he does not pray to God, does not ask for His help. Why? Not out of modesty, not out of humility. But because he is somehow afraid to interfere with God in his affairs. He wants to sort out his own affairs. At the very least, badly, but - myself. Because suddenly the Lord will intervene in his affairs and do everything completely differently than he wants. Such a person will never learn to turn to God. Because in order to truly turn to Him, you need to be ready to accept His will for yourself, whatever it may be. Any prayer should end with the words: however, not my will, but yours be done(Luke 22:42). But this is what a person doesn’t want to say, and sometimes he prefers not to say anything.

If a person has a desire to fulfill the will of God, if he needs this will to be fulfilled, what can you tell him how to learn to turn to God, so that it is not formal, but from the heart? Our life consists of situations in which we feel our human insufficiency, foolishness, weakness, sinfulness. And every such situation should become a reason to turn to God. As the Monk Nicodemus the Holy Mountain said: you got up in the evening to pray to God, and you must force out of your heart everything that occupied you during the day. But if you were unable to repress all this, were unable to forget all this for the sake of prayer, then turn it all into a reason for prayer. Because if this is important to you, then it cannot be passed by Him.

How many things happen to us, including things that hurt us! Unforeseen circumstances break our plans, destroy the work we are doing, a seemingly good and godly work; people suffer from this. How to deal with this? It is necessary to say: Lord, I will try to do what depends on me, and the rest is in Your hands, as You please, so it will be. And come to terms with it. As Elder Paisios said: before I do anything, I light a lamp and raise my hands to God, and then I do what is in my human power. This is a very good lesson for us. We need to do everything in our power, but before doing it, turn to God. And submit everything to His will and not worry about anything else. When we have such an attitude towards everything that happens to us and to God, it means that a thread (also an expression by Paisius the Holy Mountain) of trust has connected us with Him. But trust comes precisely through prayer.

- But in order to say in the hour of sorrow “... not my will, but Yours” - we need to think that we actually need this sorrow, this pain for some reason. So do I understand you?

— As the Monk Isaac the Syrian said, there is no other way to get closer to God except through sorrow. In an even, carefree, sorrowless life there would not be those moments that would make us cry out to God. When something happens to us, it mobilizes us, it gathers all our strength. Saint Theophan the Recluse said: if you pray to God, you must feel in your heart a certain “soreness” that makes you feel your heart, cry out from its depths. And when something happens to us, this sore forms by itself. Pain gathers our attention in the heart, and we pray from the heart, and not from somewhere - God knows where.

Grief can bring us closer to God, or it can push us away. To get closer, you need to say: Lord, I feel bad, I’m in pain, but if You allowed me to do this, then I need it, I thank You. If a person finds the strength to do this, he has taken a huge step forward. If a person says otherwise: “What is this, Lord, why are You so unfair to me!” - he will take a huge step back. By and large, we need to rejoice in those situations that hurt us, which the Lord Himself sends to us and in which we can trust Him. We need to be glad that the storm has broken out and we can step over the side of the boat and walk through the stormy water - to Him. Without this storm, we would not have known that this was possible. Although, of course, it is common for any of us to wish that the weather on our sea would be good.

- So, the Gethsemane prayer is an eternal model for all of us?

- Yes, and following this as a model, we need to take into account this: if the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane cried out to God three times, struggling and watering the earth with bloody sweat, then we need to cry out - not three times, but three hundred times, maybe. Because our struggle is a struggle with our own sin, cowardice, laziness. It is not easy for us to emerge victorious from this struggle. But when we come out, we always become stronger because we grow in trust in God. One of the ancient saints said: even if the sky bows to the earth, my mind will not be shaken. Such was his trust in God. We are far from such a measure, but by approaching this measure step by step, we can become a very strong and happy person.

“They say, however, that the path to spiritual growth is running up an escalator going down. Worth a stop...

“As soon as a person, who has already become accustomed to repentance and trust in God, relaxes, allows himself to complain and grumble, he becomes weaker and more unreasonable than he was.” He relaxed once, twice, three times - and became a completely unreasonable person, not understanding the ways of God and unable to come to terms with them.

— When we are in the grip of some acute experience, when we are in tears, in a state of extreme emotional stress, we relax and often do not remember God at all. If we are able to look back at ourselves - at least because we have accustomed ourselves to evening prayer and even in this state we cannot omit it - we realize that all this time it was as if God did not exist for us. And it is very difficult to gather again and return to Him.

“But in fact, this painful situation for us aims to remind us of God.” In such cases, it can really be difficult to cope with the excited nerves. But how does it arise, nervous excitement? It has a reason in the multitude of thoughts that push and pull us back and forth in our heads. An episode from the life of Macarius of Alexandria tells us what kind of battle with thoughts there is even among saints: he was so tormented by the thought of going somewhere that he lay down on the threshold of his cell and said: whoever wants can carry me, but I myself I'm not going anywhere. And he lay there until the thought went away. Thoughts weaken the nervous system, and the fight against them is, firstly, a matter of faith, and secondly, discipline. Discipline is needed in everything. If a person is used to getting up on time, he will get up on time. If I’m used to allowing myself to lie down for “five minutes,” I’ll lie down for an hour. I am accustomed to say at any time of sorrow: Lord, Thy will be done, Good welcome, won't we tolerate the evil ones?(cf. Job 2:10), which means he will say so. And if a person first allows himself to become faint-hearted, indulges in self-pity and only then tries to take control of himself, then, of course, it will be difficult for him to cope with himself.

- It was pulled down, try to get up now...

- Yes, I know this from my own experience, because I, too, am constantly dragged there. The escalator not only goes down, it also moves very quickly. But there are times when you still don’t let yourself be pulled off.

- Throughout our entire life, day after day, our attention is occupied by our own situation with all its problems, joys, hopes, fears... We are turned to ourselves, inwardly, perhaps, and to God - only insofar as this has attitude towards our same situation. When we feel bad and scared, we are ready to cry out, “Lord, have mercy!”; when we desperately need something, we are ready to ask Him for it, beg it, but we do not have a constant turn to the Creator. That’s why we can’t really pray... How can we turn ourselves a certain number of degrees?

- This is the right idea, you don’t just need to turn to God from time to time, you need to constantly turn yourself to Him. Why is this so difficult? It is difficult to leave everything that a person is turned to, to which he holds on, that owns his soul and attention. Where to begin? Anthony the Great has good advice: before going to bed, be sure to thank God for everything that happened that day. Even if on that day, according to human reasoning, there was nothing good at all, but only bad. You still need to thank God - first only with your lips, and after this verbal gratitude - perhaps even through the power of utterance - there will be an awareness of what we thank God for. Because He gave us another day to live. Because, although we fell into sins, the Lord saved us from many other sins. Because He somehow changes, forms, teaches our soul. Just start thanking - and your heart will tell you why. And it is important to start your day with the same gratitude to God. Then there won’t be this instant immersion in your own circumstances, problems, sorrows - immediately after awakening. Then you opened your eyes, and your first thought was not about the alarm clock, not about work, not about money, not even about the service - because we manage to run to church without thinking about God at all - but about Him. If a person becomes accustomed, as soon as he opens his eyes, to immediately say: “Lord, I thank You for giving me one more day,” then over time these words will penetrate very deeply into the heart.

- And so it is possible to learn to see God all the time, in other words, to respond to Him as a circumstance constantly present in our lives?

“In order to see Him all the time, you simply don’t have to turn away from Him. After all, in this world, in our lives, there is nothing that does not remind us of God. We live, breathe and exist by it. If at any moment His will, which supports our existence, becomes different, we will cease to exist. Therefore, there is no moment at which we would not have a reason to remember Him.

But the strength of a person’s remembrance of God can be different. It’s like a relationship with a person: sometimes they are smooth and familiar, but sometimes they capture us completely. It is very important that this feeling - that everything around us, everything that happens to us, is the work of God and His Providence for us - is constantly present in us. There is nothing in our lives that is not related to God!

— You say: “If you have the desire, there won’t be any special difficulties,” but how difficult it is, almost impossible to rebuild yourself! Who can do it? For example, do you succeed?

— Small discoveries await each of us on the spiritual path. And these discoveries testify not to success, no, but to the fact that a person is somehow still groping for a certain path for himself. We are very different, and the Lord, when he wants to achieve something from us, uses different ways of influencing our souls. Different ways of calling. What was, for example, the method of calling the Apostle Peter? An unexpectedly rich catch of fish (see: Lk. 5 , 4-7). But with the Apostle Matthew this happened differently (see: Matt. 9 , 9). And with the Apostle Paul (see: Acts. 9 , 3-9). The Lord selects his own key to each heart. So we, each to our own heart, must select some keys. Because the heart of each of us - on the one hand, it belongs to a person, but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem to belong to him, it is so not controlled by him.

For example, I found this key for myself: when I find myself in a situation that is difficult for me, that can destroy me - and not only my nervous system, not only my life, but also - the worst thing - my relationship with God - I try to imagine the consequences. What will I become if I allow this situation to overcome me, if I do not find the strength to come to terms with the will of God and thank Him for everything that He has sent me? I'll be left with nothing. With frayed nerves, a ruined life, with obvious signs of moral and intellectual degradation. And most importantly, I will find myself at a distance from God. How can I live like this? This thought about the horror into which I can plunge myself - it helps me overcome the painful situation and live, although it does not always help right away.

- Tell me, what else should our work consist of? It seems to me that a lot of things need to be rebuilt, for example, the attitude towards people.

— From the outside, all the trials that befall us come from people. The Lord arranges our lives, but it is people who directly create our life circumstances. Sometimes we tell ourselves this: “Yes, of course, I resign myself to what God sends me, but with this particular person I cannot find peace, because he is an instrument of untruth.” But we shouldn't really say that; in this case, we, according to the words of Abba Dorotheus, become like a dog at which a stick was thrown, and instead of figuring out where and why this stick came from, it grabs it and gnaws it as the cause of its trouble. And the cause of our misfortune is not man or God. The reason is, on the one hand, our depravity, on the other, the depravity of the world around us. And this must be accepted - not as something that has only an indirect relation to us, but as something in which we directly live. When we are accused, oppressed, it seems to us unfairly, remember the commandment about the left cheek (see: Matt. 5 , 39), to remember those of our untruths for which no one convicted us or punished us, which no one knows except us and God. Yes, we can say: it is very difficult, it is difficult to live the way you propose now. But experience shows that living differently, not doing all this, is much more difficult.

— The prayers left to us by the holy fathers of the Church are, as it were, not tailored to our standards. We do not experience what they experienced; we simply have not grown up to these experiences. Getting to know their heritage is certainly useful for us, moreover, it is necessary: without this beacon we will not be able to find the right course; but how can we pray with their words? What to do if this or that prayer does not become your own?

— A child learns poems by Pushkin, or Tyutchev, or Blok, without understanding their deep meaning; but if he reads poetry with interest and attention, his soul is gradually transformed, and gradually he can come to an understanding of poetry. And over time, perhaps, he will understand more than Pushkin or Tyutchev, such things happen. Something similar can be said about reading prayers. A person who reads them carefully will always find in them something that meets his own internal needs. By praying according to the prayer book, we ask God for forgiveness and mercy, and this is fully consistent with our measure. But there really are things there that exceed our measure. For example: saints see their own sinfulness, their unworthiness much better than us, and put it into such verbal form that it seems to us that we are better than them. Or: we understand that we are much worse, but we grieve because, unlike them, we cannot truly feel it. But if a person prays carefully and diligently, if he aligns his life with prayer, changes take place in him. A person grows - if not to the extent of saints, then, in any case, to the extent of understanding, internal acceptance of those words with which they addressed God. Prayer educates a person.

We often proceed in our reasoning from the fact that saints are not at all people like us, where should we care about them. This is, on the one hand, true; but the human soul, the soul of any of us, was originally created amazingly good, pure, bright. And in it - since man is created in the image and likeness of God - all the best is already contained. Yes, she is corrupted, distorted by sin. But there is still the best in her, and this best, of course, is able to respond to the words of the saints, live by these words and perceive them as her own. Our soul is like a tormented, downtrodden prisoner, and when we pray, we set it free. She has wings and when we pray we let her spread them and she can fly again.

- So we need to wait and hope that the words of the prayers composed by the holy fathers will one day become ours?

- There is no need to wait. You have to go towards this every day. It’s like sparks - today one spark will flash and illuminate our life, tomorrow another. Today one word of prayer is suddenly experienced by the heart as our own, tomorrow another. You just need to remember this, not to forget the insights that have already happened. Put this experience in your heart and continue to live by it. It is also important not to be afraid to experience what the saints experienced. A person is often afraid of this because it is painful to experience; the heart has to be deeply opened and laid bare before God and before oneself. This requires a renunciation of self-defense, a feeling of one’s own defenselessness. Because only when we do not protect ourselves, our Protector protects us.

“But in our daily lives we are so accustomed to defending ourselves that it seems impossible to break this habit.

- Yes, a person is a creature dependent on his habits, but habits can be changed. A person can change the bad habit of smoking to a good habit - running in the morning. Habits should depend on the person, not the person on the habits. We are used to being offended and suffering if we are told some unpleasant truth about us; and why? Why is suffering primary, and not joy from the fact that we were pointed out to something bad in us and thereby helped to change? Prayer is designed to change our heart, and by protecting ourselves, we protect our hearts from it. Here you need to choose and you need to know that it does not depend on possibility or impossibility, but on desire or unwillingness. There is, for example, such a thing as ballet: can you and I do what ballet dancers do on stage? Hardly. But they are the same people as us, they just exercised their body for years - because they wanted to dance in ballet. We are not called to exercise the body, but the soul, and if we do this poorly, it is only because we do not want to.

And one more important point: not to be afraid of the truth of life around us. Don’t hide, don’t run from it, don’t embellish it, but have the courage to face it face to face - with all its pain, horror, heaviness. And not to be horrified by this, not to be exhausted by this pain, but to accept life as it is. Only by approaching life in this way can you see human pain and try to heal it. Only by seeing life as it is, can you help someone and not ultimately pass by Christ. Often a person refuses to see life as it is and tries to formalize it. And then everything becomes a formality, including the relationship with God. At the beginning of our conversation, you compared your attitude towards God with your attitude towards man: do we always treat people informally? Are we always ready to accept a person as he is, to accept him into our hearts, and not turn away from him? How often do we turn away from a person because he causes us some kind of pain - by the very fact of his existence! And when we close ourselves off from people, we almost always close ourselves off from God. And if we once closed our heart to Him, it will not open later automatically. In order for it to reveal itself, special efforts and work of repentance will be needed. Why did St. Silouan of Athos say that praying for peace means shedding blood? Because to pray for the world you need to have such a heart - loving, feeling, merciful. That is why Elder Silouan cried over a cut snake, over a bat that he accidentally scalded with boiling water. It's hard to live like this. Live and cry over other people's pain. From the point of view of a modern person, such tears are a sign of a shattered nervous system, hysteria, etc. But from the point of view of Christianity, this is the norm - such an attitude towards all living things. Nude.

There is one more good rule, although it is not so easy to follow. When something happens that hurts us, when we suddenly learn about something, do not react to it immediately, but take a step back and wait, let what happened resonate in your heart, respond - and react after this heartfelt response. After all, we very often skim only on the surface of events and phenomena, and this also prevents us from living a true heartfelt life. And if a person does not live an authentic life, then his prayer cannot be authentic.

Journal "Orthodoxy and Modernity", No. 29 (45)

Marina Biryukova

How to correctly turn to God with requests and desires so that they come true?

Just recently we got into a conversation with a man, a salesman. He is a believer and it was precisely on this topic that he said that you need to contact the words of the Almighty powers. But it doesn't help me yet...

Sometimes God answers no, and we take this as a non-answer. Are you ready for such a turn of events?

God does not exist, as you will not understand, man was created by nature and not by God

And prayers began to help me only when I learned to THANK for all the events in my life. I had a very difficult period for 2 years, but I was able to withstand everything and learned a good lesson, gained invaluable experience. That’s exactly why I I thanked the Lord. And now I began to notice that he helps me, although I pray in my own words, with all my heart. Before going to bed, I always thank the Lord for everything that happened during the day. By the way, very often tears flow in my eyes at these moments and so on immediately My soul becomes calm, I can’t describe it. The main thing is to thank, and only then ask

God exists, I know this for sure, I don’t know where, but I know everything here, but I still can’t believe it (earlier in my youth I said why believe - I already know), but now I just want to believe, despite the fact that I am disabled in terms of feelings and not only...

I don’t know where this knowledge comes from, as if a higher power invested it or just a logical conclusion, because I’m like a machine in an eternal search for myself and God!!! And yet, nature cannot create a soul.

Only God can create an immortal soul, something like this.

So I know, I don’t know where, but I just know (perhaps this is faith, as I used to think, but no cold knowledge - it will not warm you) and now I’m tired of living as if without a soul, but I just want to believe!!!

P.S. from the most soulless creature in...

Ask with all your heart for what you really need. They say that first you need to thank for everything that is already in your life, for life itself, and for the bad things that became a lesson and could enlighten you, teach you something (after all, without the will of God, not a hair will fall from a person’s head).

Then, you need to ask for forgiveness for all the bad things you have done, for the fact that you rarely remember God and often come to Him only in case of trouble, and in joy you forget to thank Him for it.

And then ask from the heart for what you need.

Turn to the Creator very sincerely, with a spiritual impulse. You need to really WANT if you want your request to be fulfilled. First you need to thank for everything you have in life (even if you have little), then ask for forgiveness for your sins. And only after This is to make a Request. It is not necessary to pray in Church, you can anywhere, as long as the Prayer comes from the Soul.

I don’t believe that God can help, only man himself helps himself, and the church is not an office for requests; God is either present in the soul or not. Yes, we usually go to church when we are in trouble, when we no longer believe in anything, and this is the last straw.

God is our Supreme Father. Friend and Teacher. The Highest Good. Sunum bonum. Communicating with Him will never lead to bad things. Just become very dear to Him. Surrender to Him and do something for Him. Keep a dry fast on the eleventh day after the full moon and new moon. On Ekadashi.

Handle with humility. And have the right desires that will benefit you as an immortal soul. The Lord fulfills such desires first of all. And pray for the help and protection of a holy person who can intercede for you before God. Vedic literature calls such a person a spiritual teacher. Or a garden guru.

Lord, give me the strength to accept what you, in your inexhaustible mercy and wisdom, deem possible to give me. And give me reason to accept your gift, and understand all its value and turn it into a greater good for your glory.

Something like that...

P.S.

God is not a goldfish to fulfill your desires. After all, desires are different. But in order for your life to be successful and prosperous, you need to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, study the Word of God, in one word, enter into a Covenant with the Lord. Your relationship with God will grow, strengthen in faith, and then you will see for yourself how your life changes. After all, God needs your heart, which knows how to love and forgive. Jesus, as a child, grew and became strengthened in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God descended on Him. That’s how we need to grow in faith, be strong in spirit, have God’s wisdom and grace. And by the grace of God, the Lord will bless us and meet all our needs. Glory to Him!