For a long time now, I have felt that I would like to write about praying and share my prayer pattern in case it might be of help to someone else so here goes.
How many words have been written on this subject before?! Countless, I'm sure is the answer to that. Why should that be? Well, if there is a God who has made us and loves us then communication would seem to be high up on the list of imperatives in our relationship with our Maker.
As young people at school, we were given the pnemonic 'ACTS' as an aid to prayer, the letters standing for Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving and Suppplication. I was never particularly happy with this and, over the years, have come up with my own, which is as follows: Love, Adoration, Sorrow, Thanksgiving, Intercession, Need and Glory, giving the word 'LASTING'.
I actually end up praying in the opposite order of the letters. I also believe that it is important for us to pray in our own words in our personal prayer so you will find my best efforts to be as true to the accepted language of our traditional prayers as I understand it and as it makes sense to me.
The order is very much based on the Trinity which is the fundamental picture I have of the God with whom I am trying to communicate. So first of all, I address God the Father, then Jesus, his Son and then, the Holy Spirit.
As this has turned into quite a long introduction, I will start another post to give the actual prayers.
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