I ask this every day. Don’t think being a Christian puts you in some kind of exclusive club where you are exclusively privy to the Almighty’s blessings. It doesn’t get easier. Prayer is a tricky thing to understand, even if it’s childlike. It’s even harder when you are as crap a Christian as i am. Understanding when and how prayer is answered as opposed to when it is not requires a lot of wisdom – the kind only the old greys have. Sometimes it’s very loud and obvious, but most of the time it’s very subtle and you have to look for it.

I am continually plagued by doubt. I pray for so many different things, and being as impatient as i am, i’m always furiously demanding an answer. If i can do it, believe me, you can. I’ve prayed for some bizarre things and seen them happen almost instantaneously. But there have also been more times when my mum has asked me about my spiritual life and i’ve had to say “well, the boss and i have a bit of a communication problem, and we’re not really speaking right now.”

The simple answer to the question is one of two reasons – you’re asking wrongly, or there is a bigger plan at work.

The worst answer i dread is “wait”. Nothing gets me hopping around madder than that. No, i won’t fucking wait. I want it now. If you’re so big, how come you can’t find a way to do it now? Answer? It is people who need time, not God. I wish i could call the Father a smartass, but when you realise the wisdom and love involved, it’s hard. I’m always the naive smartass and think i’m ready way before i truly am. I can always have done a better job. No, really. It’s got me far, that idea has.

I am going for a whole military tonne of prayer tomorrow morning, as i need it. I’ll pray with anyone, and be prayed for by anyone. I wonder if the Father has a specialised department for me as i always have so many things i need doing, or whether He smiles when He seeing me walking down the road on my way to speak with Him.

There is this preconception of prayer where you sit on your knees and ask God for something, like you’re ordering a quick-fix solution to a problem or something off a menu (e.g. winning the lottery). And then when it isn’t delivered, there is this defiant outrage that He clearly isn’t there, doesn’t like you or you weren’t heard. After that it’s so much more appealing to have your Tarot cards read, buy astrology books or consult a medium. All of those things give an immediate and weirdly esoteric “answer” on-demand, totally at your whim.

I have very little patience with anyone who thinks paying for divination of any kind is a) legitimate, b) spiritually fulfilling, c) harmless fun, or d) something for an intelligent person to be involved with. Not because i’m a Christian, but because it’s largely fraudulent and explainable by traditional means. It’s essentially crass in my eyes. I find it offensive on every level.

All major religions deal with spirituality, and the “spirit” or the “soul” – we have been spiritual creatures since our evolution some 150,000 years ago (when we buried our dead). Christianity asserts that the “spirit” is the facility for us that allows us to connect with and communicate with a Creator that exists outside our  space-time manifold. We cannot physically exist outside time or our own physical universe, but our spirit is our invisible channel/connection to God that allows us access to Him. From that, it’s clear to understand that prayer is an activity of the spirit, rather than just the heart or the body.

The single biggest lesson i have learnt about the Father is that he always, always, ALWAYS meets us halfway. Always. We must choose to walk into the middle to meet Him, and He joins us there. He helps those who help themselves and gets to know only those who want to get to know Him.

Oh, and he despises dishonesty and pretentiousness, so put your social mask away.

We spend our lives expecting Him to walk over to us, and then resent Him for it. That does not involve choice or freedom. No loving God would behave like that or force anything on anyone, no matter how benign the action. It’s 50/50 all the way from beginning to end. It is something we must choose.

Prayer needs to be learnt
Prayer is not naive, empty or silly. It is something you have to deliberately study and learn about. How? From the Bible, and other Christians. All the answers you need are already there. You need to work out what it is, and what it is not. There’s no point trying to drive a car without understanding what a car is, why it’s useful and how it’s driven. Anyone can do it, even toddlers. You don’t need to be religious or anything you’re not. It’s for everyone to do whenever they feel like it for whatever their own reasons, wherever they are with whomever they like.

Prayer is an ongoing conversation
You don’t pray as a one-off, although of course you can. Prayer is communication and meditation – a way to think of others, calm down, think about you, get in touch your subconscious, and listen to the Father (yes, hilarious to imagine me listening, of course). It’s more about listening than talking, about sunbathing more than making requests. You do it regularly to show your faith, as it is faith that gets prayers answered. You need to be a little stubborn about it and make it a habit.

Prayer requires that you are 100% genuine from the bottom of your heart
If you don’t mean it or want to do it, seriously, don’t bother. If there is a God, then He knows you better than you know yourself – every hair is counted. You cannot hide what is inside you from Him, and it’s foolish to even try. He will know you don’t meant it or are putting on a front like you do with other people – only the truly stupid try to fool God or assume they will be able to hide. If you’re upset, angry, afraid, ashamed, bored, doubtful, disbelieving, proud, resentful, offended, desperate or anything else – just say it. He knows anyway. He’s bigger than anything you think or feel. Don’t be pious or hypocritical like some Catholic priest. Just be totally honest and get it out no matter how bad it is.

He knows when you have a vested interest or agenda. He knows when you’re saying something else than what you are or what you feel. He knows when your intentions aren’t true or pure. He knows if you secretly want something else. He knows you’re doing it for the sake of it or to satisfy someone else. He knows you want something when you won’t bother to stop doing all the other bad/negative things in the other parts of your life. He knows when you want something but aren’t prepared to give in return or meet Him in the middle. Only prayers that are said honestly from the very bottom of your heart are answered.

Prayer isn’t measurable by the scientific method
There are this absurd community of little men in laboratories that think God can be measured and tested scientifically – the idea is to pray for people having surgery, and then record how many improved or not. It’s amazing how blind and stupid clever people can be. The Father invented science and is outside of His creation (i.e. not subject to its rules), so it’s utterly futile. Experiments do not prove or disprove God. He violates natural law, rather than abiding by it.

Prayer is granted by faith and trust
Faith is knowing from the bottom of your heart something that cannot be seen, understood or relied upon by other means other than your belief in it. It is the “petrol” of the spiritual engine and the sole reason for prayer being answered. The Bible is littered with Christ blatantly stating that it is the faith of those asking that means someone is healed, even if the person receiving the healing isn’t there with him. Pray with absolute faith, and your prayer is *always* answered. The longer the prayer takes, the more faith is required (hence the reason for delaying answers - to grow your faith). The more faith, the more dramatic and immediate the answer. Remember who you are asking, and who He is.

Prayer means opening up
There’s no two ways about it - if you want an answer, you need to meet the Father in the middle and be open to Him and the answer. Prayer is about choice, and making the choice to communicate - but it’s a two-way conversation. You cannot ask and then close yourself up like a lock, as the whole exercise is pointless. If you cannot or will not receive, you cannot recognise, understand or get an answer to your prayer. If you have that desperate empty longing to connect with the Father, the door has to be opened - even if you’re scared, even if you’re unwilling, even if you can’t.  How? You pray for the ability and courage to open up.

Prayer isn’t about being obsessed with the ritual of doing it
Catholics are the absolute worst for this. They have rosaries, chanting, oils, ceremony and all the other unnecessary crap that gets in the way. Prayer is simple and uncomplicated, and totally different for everyone. There are no rules, no decorum or any specific way of doing things. In fact, Christ deliberately warns people not to pray like the hypocritical Pharisees who do it loudly in public just to be seen to be doing it. God never uses 10 words when 1 will do. Christ was a carpenter with uneducated peasants for followers. Do you still think you need to prayer for 10hrs in Latin using vague abstract concepts and verbose requests?

Prayer is not making a wish or casting a spell
Cheap tacky new-age pseudo-spiritual tat like divination and horseshit Wicca ceremony is about paying to feel better because you get the answer you want, now. If you treat prayer like it’s a shopping list or doing some magical ceremony, you’re fucked from the outset. The purpose of prayer has got fuck all to do with what you selfishly want – it’s about a relationship with the creator, living in accordance with His will and being a part of His bigger picture. To pray requires you understand what prayer is, and if you go in with the wrong idea, guess what? You’re going to end up disappointed. God doesn’t do spells, drive-through food or genie-in-a-bottle routines.

Prayer is answered differently each time
Christ never does the same thing twice. One moment He’s laying hands on someone, the next he’s spitting in the dirt, then He’s smashing the temple up, next shouting, whispering after. Knowing whether your prayer has been answered means you need to know *how* it gets answered. Most of the time it is subtle and you need to know what to look for and be nakedly open to that answer. Sometimes a piece of scripture will find its way to you. Other times it is done through other people you know, maybe something they say to you. It might be a point in a book or a movie that sticks out. Perhaps its God’s gentle voice and touch as you are quiet and alone. Rarely it is a thunderbolt. The thing you need drops through the letterbox at the 11th hour. What you expect governs what you see as an answer. The Father works through stirring the hearts of people (hence the idea of the Kingdom of God being a spiritual thing rather than political empire), including yours.

Prayer shouldn’t involve your own selfish requests
Our universe doesn’t revolve around us, it revolves around the Father, and we need to be grateful for it even if it involves a change of attitude to think that. The Kingdom of God comes before all things – our material wants, money, and even food. Christ specifically states that all our needs will be met automatically if we seek the Kingdom first - NOT the other way around. Faith is even more important and crucial than food and water. There may be a bigger picture we don’t know about that is more important than our discomfort. If what you’re asking for is essentially meaningless or based on your own vanities, don’t expect it to be answered.

Prayer needs to be specific, targeted and confirmed
Unlike other vague belief systems (cough – new age crap - cough), when you pray you are to ask for something as specifically as you possibly can rather than just ask for something distant. World peace isn’t likely, so praying for it is arguably questionable (most i know would say pray for it anyway), as is the new Ferrari, £100k in cash, an easier life, a miraculous sign from heaven, more fun, a new lover, freedom from harm or disease or the likes thereof. Be laser-specific, as you’ll be able to see when it’s answered. Then be realistic as to whether it is the best thing to happen in that situation, and what you might learn from it not happening. Then you pray again to ask for confirmation in the answer. Generally my Christian friends tend to ask for the answer to be confirmed in 3 different ways, which is perfectly legitimate and reasonable, biblically speaking.

Prayer works on the Father’s timescales, not yours
God is extradimensional and exists outside our time – he can exist in multiple dimensions of time, so is able to move along our timeline in any direction at will. He has his own timing that is always perfect. Often what we pray for is not right at that moment as there is a better time for it to happen that we can’t see. We always want things right here, right now, but it would be irresponsible to grant them all on demand. The answer you want and need may not come according to your need to see it, feel it or have it answered, but when the time is right for it to be answered. Often the person we are praying for needs to get a “place” and it’s not the right timing for them.

Prayer is answered if our lifestyle is in sync with God
A loving and righteous Father does not reward destructive behaviour or honour prayers of paedophiles and murderers, but answers prayer when we live within the rules of His creation. In many cases our prayer cannot be answered until we spiritually move away the block and/or the elephant in the room that is within our control that is sinful, negative or destructive. We need to be in s specific “place” in our heart and mind so that we can be ready for the answer once it is dispatched, and we need to our part of the bargain. Again, it is down to choice. To move on in one area of our life, we need to make a choice about another part of it. That choice is always the same - the world’s way, or the Father’s. Our way, or His. Not easy at all.

Prayers often get the answer “No”
The Bible defines 3 reasons that the Father says “no” to something. The first is that He has a bigger perspective on the situation; the second is that He has a better plan, and the third is when He has a greater purpose at work. Silence is not “no” – if it’s a no, the path will be obviously blocked for you as the answer and you will have to fight to take that route, accepting the consequences of taking it. Being open to the answer means being open to the idea that the answer we get might be “no”.

—–

My nephew’s prayers are the sweetest thing in the world. He is so incredibly intuitive, and i understand now why little children were so valued by Christ. They’re totally honest, simple, short and right to the point. Scripture even says that we can only enter the Kingdom of God if we become like innocent tiny children who don’t know they can’t.

I often get asked how i personally pray. “Badly” is the answer. Well the truth is that it is always very privately and i’ve never said a prayer for anyone else with them there. I’d like to some day. I tend to pray when i go for a walk, as it relaxes me and gives me a reason to be taking a break. I talk lightly as if the Father was walking with me in person by my side. I don’t think there’s any real set format, but i tend to go through the following (i’m not sure if it’s the best way):

• Remembering who i am talking to
• Saying thanks and be grateful
• Tantrum
• Asking forgiveness for myself and the people who are harming me
• Explaining honestly how i’m feeling and what’s worrying me
• Tantrum
• Tantrum
• Praying about specific people (what’s happening to them and what they need)
• Asking specifically what i want the Father to do for me
• Tantrum
• Saying thanks in advance
• Tantrum

Yes, we have a Father who can create stars, destroy solar systems and make the earth tremble through earthquakes, but that’s NOT how he works with His creation. He has to be a lot more gentle than even we are with each other. The other big lesson i have learnt is that He does not *make* people do things; He creates situations and stirs people’s hearts. In that way we have a choice to do what He wants. He is all about making us choose, almost all the time. The Father wants us to make choices, and puts us in situations where we have to make them.

If you prayed to have faith, would you get it on a plate, or would you be placed in a situation where you needed it? If you prayed for God to speak to you to show you He was there, would He appear in a vision or put you in a situation that would enable you learn to see Him and to find out? He did put you there, but you still can’t see it. You asked and he gave you the means, but you didn’t recognise it at the time. You were too busy looking out for a vision or a thunderbolt that would take away your choice/freedom and do it all for you.

And once you found yourself in that situation, would He want you to just sit there, or to make a choice because of it?

I have a thousand stories of answered prayer, but my favourite was this May at my mum’s place. Kel had stayed for the weekend and it had been heavily traumatic but also wonderful. I had no idea what was going on in Kent at the time, but what was being hidden from me was massive. The Father knew what was happening though, so i simply trusted He’d explain it all in due course. I said a simple prayer after Kel left as everything i’d held back came flooding in as soon as she drove off. I prayed that if i was to stay in that situation and she was right for me that He would “lift the numbness” she’d been experiencing, really obviously and temporarily. I had no idea what those words meant until the next day, as it seemed so flippant.

The next morning, off her own back, Kel was prancing around Gravesend, dramatically changed and happier than i’d ever heard her, saying how she felt weirdly that her “heart had been warmed”. I didn’t even realise until the day after that the prayer had been answered. Once you realise that the Father stirs the heart and guides/directs your steps rather than striking down with lightening, it gets easier to pray for the right things in the right way. The Father always creates a choice of options rather than interfering with our freedom to do as we wish. If you feel an unexplained urge in your heart to do something, that’s typically the Father putting a hand on your shoulder. It’s how random things and people mysteriously turn up coincidentally in the right place at the right time, just when you need them to.

The wedding at Cana is a great example of the Father’s benevolence in answering prayer – the water doesn’t have to be turned into wine at all, but it is done simply for the sake of it. The key turning point is the faith of Christ’s mother, who is so desperate to see the Kingdom of God realised in her son that it is simply an indulgent gesture of kindness done to make everyone happy in response to her faith and righteous desire, for only the reason that they be happy. It wasn’t necessary, but the Father did it anyway for the people that loved Him just for the hell of it.

So the point is, to ask something of the Father, you must be one of His own. To pray using His name and authority, you must be entitled to use it. To do either of these things, you must identify yourself as one of the Father’s. Only when you do that are you able to connect with Him and have your prayer answered in full. You cannot borrow or have access to something without being part of it or giving something in return. Just as a Jedi needs to be mindful of fear and the dark side, so must those who pray be mindful that they approach the Father in the right way, be aware of the larger perspective and have the right motives.

Ask yourself this - if there is a Creator, then WHY did He create? Why does He answer prayer or communicate in the first place? What on earth would be the point of creating all this if it wasn’t to get to know the parts of his creation personally, give them good things, splash out on them continually and love them?

Being able to recognise an answer to prayer takes wisdom and discernment, because often the answer to that prayer involves us landing in a situation where we need to make a choice first – either before the prayer is answered/released, or because making that choice is the answer to that prayer. Once you realise the Father is infinitely bigger than you can comprehend, you understand why prayer isn’t answered on a plate. Having a universe under management means it’s not as straightforward and on your timescales and expectations, but it is always answered.

To recap:

• Learn what prayer is, and what it isn’t.
• Make a choice to meet the Father in the middle rather than demanding it all one-way.
• Drop all pretense and be as honest as a small child - say it from the bottom of your heart.
• Keep it simple. Do it in private, in a whisper. Pray with others. Forget the fancy crap.
• Make sure what you’re praying for is in alignment with the Kingdom first and foremost.
• Open up so you can receive an answer.
• Remember there might be a bigger situation and the timing might not be your preference.
• Learn to recognise how the Father answers.

Prayer is absolutely the most lethal and awe-inspiring thing in the world, but is as gentle as a whisper. But you must open your eyes and learn to see the answer, which means opening up to see the world as the Father sees it.

If this blog was the answer to your prayer, would you be abke to recognise it as an answer?

“O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before You.” (Psa 88.1)

“The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of those with a rrighteous.heart.” (Proverbs 15:29)

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” (John 14:2)

“When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your desires” (James 4:3).

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the churches and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:5-8).

“‘Have faith in God,’ Jesus answered. ‘I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins’” (Mark 11:22-25).

“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14:13-14).

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)