What is prayer?

When I was very young, I thought of prayer as basically two things, "God, please give me this" and "God, please do that." Over the years my view of prayer has changed drastically.

Here is a video of people answering the question, "What is prayer?"

Here are some of the answers.

"I thought of prayer before as asking for something, but now I've realized that for me, prayer is accepting what already is."

".... so, it's open my eyes so that I may see the glorious reality that's really here."

"Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. "1 Mohandas Gandhi

Another thought about prayer is:

"Prayer is, at root, simply paying attention to God "2

Now, of course, if we talk about, we need to define what we mean by God.

Some thoughts about Prayer

Prayer is focused intention. Keeping some desire in your mind as you work towards the fulfilling of that desire.

• 1. Prayer is not asking.
• 2. M. Charles Pope, “A simple but powerful definition of prayer”, 2013. [Online]. Available: http://blog.adw.org/2013/10/a-simple-but-powerful-definition-of-prayer.