April 28, 2024

HERE MY PRAYER

Psalms 143:1 (142:1)

O Lord, hear my prayer; Give ear to my supplication in Your truth;
Answer me in Your righteousness;

Personal Challenge

I love how God often drives His point home... if we are willing to listen. In my daily devotion, I am reading Daily Readings of the Early Church Fathers as well as the writings of Origen. Below is the content for today from the Daily Readings taken from St. Cyprian of Carthage,

APRIL 28

Concentrate When You Pray

Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto Thee will I pray.

PSALM 5:2

When we stand praying, beloved brothers and sisters, we should be vigilant and serious with our whole heart, concentrating on our prayers. All fleshly and worldly thoughts must be set aside. The soul at prayer must think of nothing but the object of its prayer alone.

Thus the bishop, before his prayer, readies the minds of his brothers and sisters by saying, "Lift up your hearts." When the people respond, "We lift them up to the Lord," the bishop is reminded that he himself should think of nothing but the Lord. Close your heart against the enemy! Open it to God alone! Do not let God's enemy come near at the time of prayer! He often creeps up on us, pierces our hearts, and by cunning trickery pulls our prayers away from God. We end up having one thing in our heart, and another in our voice! But it isn't the sound of the voice, but the soul and mind, that should be praying to the Lord with a pure purpose.

How irresponsible it is, to be diverted and carried off by silly and irreverent thoughts when you are praying to the Lord! As if there were anything else you should be thinking, apart from the fact that you are speaking with God! How can you ask God to hear you, when you don't even hear your own words? Do you want God to be mindful of you, when you aren't mindful of yourself? This is to have no safeguard whatever against the enemy! If this is how you pray to God, you offend His majesty by the sloppiness of your prayer! This is being watchful with your eyes, and asleep in your heart! But the Christian, even though he sleeps with his eyes, should be awake in his heart.

Add to this the verse for today, which is somewhat randomly selected, then I see that God is driving the point home that I need to be more focused and intentional in my prayers. Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!