Prayer Requests Answered for United Kingdom and Canada
Hello, this is Pastor Roland. I have many friends in Canada and in the United Kingdom. I've been helping people for 25 years and I'm still going strong.If you are in England or Canada and you need prayer, just send me an email and I will pray for you.
I don't have a church building and I don't work for anyone. I'm a pastor who helps people on the radio and on the internet.
Whatever your issue is, if you would like someone to pray for you, then I will be glad to do so.
But it gets better.
If you have questions, you can ask me. I even have free live chat, so you can ask me and I answer you right away live.
Got relationship issues? I've written some books and I have lots of free posts about solving relationship issues.
Want help with learning to pray a bit better? I have resources. Most people today are so lost in their distractions--music, radio, telveision, video games, texting, cell phones, and virtual reality, that they feel like they have brain fog and find it difficult to pray. I have a meditation that helps you stand back from the involvement with distractions, so that you are in a more prayerful state of mind--making effective prayer much easier.
So get in touch with me.
Below is an excerpt from an article I wrote a couple of years ago
Psalm 145:18 throws a great deal of light on the question of how to pray: "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth." That little expression "in truth" is worthy of study. If you will take your concordance and go through the Bible, you will find that this expression means "in reality," "in sincerity." The prayer that God answers is the prayer that is real, the prayer that asks for something that is sincerely desired.
The above reading is from the classic How to Pray by Reuben A. Torrey, published in 1900.
At one point, Christ said something like The Father desires worshipers such as these who worship God in spirit and in truth.
The fact is that most of us cannot pray. We are lost in thinking and imagining. We are lost in our distractions. Perhaps you have noticed this yourself.
It is hard to pray when you are ill with a fever, for example. You are lost in delirium and cannot focus properly. Many times when I am at Starbucks or at the library to go online I see someone who comes in to study. He or she pulls out a textbook or notebook and begins to study, but after about 5 minutes, s/he inevitably reaches for the mobile device and begins scrolling for text messages or emails.
It is for this reason that I recommend beginning with the Christian meditation available here. Most of us are lost in a semi stupor or trance state. We don't know that we are but the evidence of it is that everything pulls on your attention, you have difficulty focusing on things and even more importantly, you are lost in thinking. daydreaming, and the thought stream much of the time.
I was recently teaching a safe driving course, and we were talking about distracted driving. I said that eating while we drive, talking on the hands free cell phone while we drive, listening to the radio or a CD and so on are all distractions.
I then mentioned that daydreaming is also a distraction. One student arrogantly proclaimed that he never daydreams while he drives. He scoffed and said that no one daydreams while they drive. I marveled at his blindness and lack of awareness. Thinking about what we just did, or what we plan to do, or about what someone said to us, even if only for less than a minute (though most of us daydream for much longer stretches) is daydreaming.
When lost in thought, we are not fully there. All of this is to say that when the soul is immersed in the thought stream (or lost in emotional thinking) it is in a state where it cannot pray.
But the person who learns to meditate properly is restored to objectivity, (to "truth" in the words from the quote). Mentally standing back from thought, the person can observe thought instead of being lost in it.
The spirit of the world speaks to us with notions, words and thoughts from its lower abode in the lower mind or in the imagination. From down there it talks to you and gives you wrong ideals. Even when it says factual truths, or sometimes it even quotes Bible verses, it is not sincere.
It misleads you, and when you pray from this lower sort of thinking, it is words in vain. It is for this reason that people can even become afraid to pray. They sense something false about the prayer or fear that something will make them pray something harmful.
Therefore, it must recommend again, and strongly, that you first clear the mind and learn to mentally stand back for objectivity.
When you are no longer lost in thought, you soul stand humble and awaits direction. When the soul is free from the contamination of the lower type of thinking, it is also free from the spirit of the lower mind.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent was on the outside, but when the first humans sinned, the spirit got inside and it has been in
When immersed in the thought stream, you are subject to post hypnotic influence, as well as the powerful imaginings that pull on your awareness. Down there, lost in the Alice in Wonderland world of fantasy and unreality, you are subject to whatever or whoever drove you into the imagination, and to whatever controls your imagination.
Most of our thoughts come from outside, and that is why when we are thus entranced, we are suggestible. Have you ever wondered why you do dumb things, say dumb things or spend too much money on something. later you could kick yourself "Why did I waste my money on that? you wonder.
It is because you were subject to outside suggestions.
But if you can regain the objective state (which you had when you were a little child, before you were upset by the world), then you will be free to pray.
When you begin to meditate properly, you will discover that you will be able to concentrate for the first time. Before you were merely caught up in one thing or another. When your attention was captured by one thing and another you were distracted. When you fixated on one thing for a long time, you thought you were concentrating, but your attention had been captured.
In the objective state, you will be able to pray. But you will discover most likely that you don't even know what to ask for. You will realize your lack, and wanting to ask the right thing, but not knowing what it is, you are honestly at a loss, yet unwilling to do what is wrong. this sincere humble state calls upon the compassion of the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will pray for you.
You may also realize, in this objective state, your own insincerity--i.e. you realize your selfishness and something false about yourself. This is good. Why? Because you are realizing in God's Light the truth about yourself. Seeing this truth, you are humbled and you realize your own helplessness. But it is this realization that is a comfort, because you know that it is God who is making your realize a truth about yourself, even though it is negative.
In other words, you see the lesser negative truth (with a small t) about yourself in the light of the greater Truth (with a capital T). You realize that God's Truth is shining a light on your wrong so that you can see it in the light and be repented of it and change for the better.
Realizing the truth without resenting it thus frees you of having to put on a show for God or pretend. You realize in His wordless Light that you are weak and don't know what to ask for, and it is comforting to the soul because it realizes that God knows you, and does not hate you for your wrong or your foolishness. You realize that in you prior state you did not know any better, and God forgives you for your errors.
In this state, seeing that you honestly don't know what to do or to say, and yet being unwilling to do wrong, and sincerely yearning to do what is right--God knows what you need even before you ask. That is why there is no need for wordy prayers.
It basically frees you from having to do anything other than to meditate properly to come close to God. Going about your daily activities, you become more spontaneous, no longer feeling compelled or obligated to put on a show for God or anyone else. You have more time to enjoy the closeness to God and to ponder life and learn its meaning.
Paul exhorts us to pray unceasingly, and I believe he is referring to the meditative life, where we become objective to thoughts and feelings, closer to the Light, and no longer immersed in daydreams, plans and schemes.
I also believe this is the prized state of mind that Christian mystics such as Madame Guyon, St. John of the Cross, Francois Fenelon, Miguel de Molinos, and Saint Francis de Sales had found. They tried to tell us about it and put it in the verbal coinage of the day. They used words like "prayer or contemplation," but I am sure they were referring to the objective state of awareness, mentally standing back from thought, and there finding communion with God.
In a nutshell, ineffectual prayer is praying intellectually or emotionally, from the lower mind and with our consciousness caught up in external things and imagination. This is the state we all live in most of the time. Occasionally we are awakened from our trance state (which becomes a comfort zone) with a wake up call like the morning after the night before, when we exclaim OMG, what did I do!
Some wake up through a brush with death, a heart attack, the piercing words of an honest friend who tells you the truth, or through the suffering of, say, cancer treatment. But even in such cases, most people do not stay awake. They cannot bear the truth and quickly lose themselves in their treatment, in study, drugs, or get caught up with some group or organized religion.
Perhaps now you can see why it is only the sincere soul, who deep down in a wordless way, yearns for truth and is willing to bear the truth because of a love of truth that can meditate, wake up and stay awake.
If you can bear reading what I have been saying, perhaps you are one of the sincere souls destined to become a child of God who will benefit from the meditation. If so, you are blessed.
Try the free 5 minute prayer meditation. Then you may wish to get the classic 4 part meditation, which includes two free books. The suggested donation for the 4 part meditation and eBooks is nominal ($10.00) and if you cannot afford that amount, just donate what you can.
If you cannot afford anything, I will send you the link to get the link to the meditation and books free of charge.
Once you begin to meditate, you will be in a state of mind which is receptive to sound instruction, and you will be able to read and appreciate what I say and write, and when you read the beautiful words of Mr. Torrey, which follow, you will appreciate them even more.
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him.God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:23-24
Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Romans 8:26
End of article. Below is a longer passage from Reuben Torrey's book. In my objective state I can appreciate it and glean some pieces of information which may be useful to me. I don't read, in the traditional sense of the word--like gobble up each word--instead I scan looking for clues.
