Homecoming Talk Oct. 2008 Prayer

1.     Who do we pray to?

Elder Faerch, Elder Christensen

There is a surprising number of people in the world today, even amongst us members of the church, who do not fully understand who or what we pray to.  In Preach My gospel the very first line of the very first lesson that we teach says. “God is our Heavenly Father. We are His children. He has a body of flesh and bone that is glorified and perfected. He loves us.” To me you couldn’t explain anymore clearer than Preach My Gospel does about who our Father in Heaven is, and this is who we pray to. Not some spirit that doesn’t have a body that just floats around everywhere, we don’t pray to the mother Mary, or the Holy Ghost, we don’t even pray to Jesus Christ. We only pray to God, our Father in Heaven. There are so many people in the world today who are confused about the true nature of God, we are so blessed to be taught at a young age in Primary the Difference between God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, there are so many people who don’t have a clue who they pray to. Thankfully if someone is sincere and has pure motives, God will come down and help them to there own level of understanding. As members of the only true and living church, we know who God is, but how often do we stop to think about who we are actually praying to? There was a senior missionary couple who I served closely around.. And I had many opportunities to speak and interact with this particular couple, Elder and Sister Ward. Now Elder ward shared with me something that I will always remember and that I have thought about and used every day since he shared this special bit of information with me. He was at our boarding for some reason or another and we got talking and the subject of prayer was brought up, and he told me “I can never pray until I can see who it is that I am praying to.” Well I thought about this for a while and it made a whole lot of sense to me. How often do we take the time to think and to visualize our Father in Heaven? It can make a world of difference in our prayers. When we can see who it is that we are praying to our prayers become more meaningful, more sincere, I have found that it is easier to understand what my Father in Heavens will for me is.  The bible dictionary helps us to understand why we need to learn our relationship with God to have meaningful prayers. It says. “As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand towards God (namely, God is our Father, and we are his children) then at once the prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part.  Many of the so called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship.” I know that what the bible dictionary says is true. When we come to know who God is our prayer will flow naturally, we won’t have to worry about our clumsy thought and we can just pray, and this will benefit ourselves and others greatly.