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Musings and Memories

God will hear your prayers

Doug Dezotell
Posted 4/30/22

Ever since I was a young child I learned the importance of prayer.

I heard my mother pray, my grandmother pray, and I heard numerous pastors pray from the pulpit at the church where I was …

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Musings and Memories

God will hear your prayers

Posted

Ever since I was a young child I learned the importance of prayer.

I heard my mother pray, my grandmother pray, and I heard numerous pastors pray from the pulpit at the church where I was raised.

Mom taught us Dezotell kids a simple prayer that we prayed every night when we crawled into bed. It went like this: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

There were some nights in my young mind where I was afraid to doze off to sleep for fear that I would die in my sleep, and that God would take my soul.

That was a scary concept for me as a young one.

As I got older and learned more about the Christian life in Sunday school I began to understand that going to be with the Lord was not a bad thing.

I remember being told when Dad died that he had gone to be with the Lord. I tried to figure that out. How does that happen?

Learning to pray, learning about death, learning about Heaven, are weighty subjects for children, but necessary for Christian training.

We spend the rest of our lives learning about our Christian faith, about what prayer really is, about what the Bible says about all those things.

The older I get the more I realize I have a whole lot to learn. I know that I will be seeking knowledge and wisdom until the Lord calls me Home.

Solomon’s introduction to the Book of Proverbs goes like this: Proverbs 1… The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: 2 To know wisdom and instruction, To perceive the words of understanding, 3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, Justice, judgment, and equity; 4 To give prudence to the simple, To the young man knowledge and discretion— 5 A wise man will hear and increase learning, And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel, 6 To understand a proverb and an enigma, The words of the wise and their riddles. 7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

I certainly don’t want to be classified as a fool, so I have had a goal of learning and gaining wisdom throughout my life, and the more I learn the more I realize I sure have a lot to learn.

Jesus’ closest disciples wanted to learn and gain knowledge and wisdom and they asked Him plenty of questions. One of those questions was regarding prayer.

In the Gospel of Luke chapter 11 we read about that: One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, will you teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples?” 2 Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your Name, Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’ 5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. 9 So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Ever since I was a young child I have had a desire to learn to pray, to develop a personal dialogue with God, to talk to Him and have Him talk back to me. The older I get the easier it gets, and yet I still have so much to learn.

Many times people talk about the proper posture to use when praying. Some people insist that you have to pray on your knees, and others have their personal prayer posture ideas.

Years ago, Sam Walter Foss wrote a poem expressing the unimportance of the posture of prayer. He called it, ‘The Prayer of Cyrus Brown:’

“The proper way for a man to pray," Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes “And the only proper attitude Is down upon his knees.”

“No, I should say the way to pray,” Said Reverend Doctor Wise, “Is standing straight with outstretched arms And rapt and upturned eyes.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said Elder Slow, “Such posture is too proud. A man should pray with eyes fast-closed And head contritely bowed.”

“It seems to me his hands should be Austerely clasped in front With both thumbs pointing toward the ground.” Said Reverend Doctor Blunt.

“Last year I fell in Hidgekin’s well Headfirst,” said Cyrus Brown, “With both my heels a-stickin’ up And my head a-pointin’ down.

And I made a prayer right then and there, The best prayer I ever said, The prayingest prayer I ever prayed, A-standin’ on my head.”

Cyrus Brown learned the true importance of prayer when he needed it most.

No matter where you are, no matter your situation, God is ready and willing to hear from you, and He is always willing to teach us how.