For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing. For behold, it is not counted unto him for righteousness. For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God. (Moroni 7:6-8)
Is prayer a chore for you? Do you run out of things to say? Do you fall asleep when you pray? Does your mind wander?
True prayer is something you desire. Once you have experienced it, you’ll want to pray all the time. It will be difficult not to pray when given the opportunity. It will be difficult not to make the opportunity, even when it is not readily available. You will wake up early to pray. You will stay up late to pray. You will sneak prayers in your office at work. You will see weekends and vacations as a time to get in extra prayers.
Does all of this sound incredible? Is it hard to believe? If so, it is because you are thinking of normal prayer, not true prayer. True prayer, or correct prayer, is what God means when he uses the word. Normal prayer is what we do instead.
Like a bow and arrow, prayer is so simple that it can be used by a small child, yet takes incredible skill to wield with the intended precision and capability. There is a big difference between a crude bow and arrow fashioned from a stick and piece of twine and a modern compound bow. Obtaining superior results from the latter takes training. So it is with prayer. First you must obtain advanced knowledge, then you must practice using it until your skills are honed.
What makes true prayer so desirable, and how is it different than normal prayer? True prayer occurs when there is an active connection between you and heaven. This connection quickens you with the Holy Ghost. True prayer basks you in the glory of a higher world, every time. True prayer opens the door to visits from heaven and visits to heaven. True prayer tangibly effects every aspect of your life outside of prayer. There is nothing you can do of your own volition that is more important or more beneficial to you than engaging in true prayer. It is your strongest lifeline to God, and yet so little is commonly understood about it.
True prayer brings three types of blessings. The first type are blessings that occur during your prayers every time you pray. Every single time you pray you should connect to the heavens. This is the point. If you do not connect to the heavens during a prayer, you are doing it wrong and wasting your time. Evil spirits love to tell men not to pray, but they also love when men don’t know how to pray. Every normal prayer you offer distances you from God because it trains you to believe that he isn’t there, doesn’t care, and that prayer doesn’t do anything. True prayer creates a connection to heaven, and that conduit channels fire into your soul. It changes your heart, basks you in the love of God, strengthens you against temptation, quickens your mind to receive revelation, and cleans your spiritual eyes from the scales the world darkens them with. This connection consists of—at a minimum—the fire and voice of God’s spirit. Every prayer you offer ought to be a two-way communication. You can ask questions and receive answers every time you pray, and you can feel God’s love and power every time you pray.
The second type of blessings from true prayer are those that come while you are praying, but may not come every time. These include visits from God, visits from angels, visits to heaven, visions, prophecies, promises from God, mighty miracles, and revelations of mysteries.
The third type of blessings from true prayer are blessings that occur after prayers because of prayers. True prayer touches every aspect of your life. It will subdue the natural man, strengthen your resistance to temptation, make your character more Christ-like, and increase the frequency of spiritual manifestations (visits from God, visits from angels, visits to heaven, visions, prophecies, promises from God, mighty miracles, and revelations of mysteries) throughout your day.
People who struggle to pray struggle because they have yet to experience true prayer. The process of achieving true prayer is described in several chapters in this book. Here, instead of discussing how this is achieved, we will discuss one aspect of what it is like, which can be described as real intent.
The Lord said “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:6) The Lord fills those who hunger and thirst. A person prays with real intent when they desire the Lord more than anything in this world. In this condition, you are driven to your knees in longing, consummate desire to commune with God. The Lord said: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22) What do you desire?
When you exercise real intent, your prayers become consummate. You rid you mind of all other concerns. You lose track of what you are doing later in the day, what time it is, and even where you are. If you find yourself falling asleep, real intent causes you to pray in the morning and to go to bed earlier. If you find yourself terminating your prayer because of time, real intent drives you to wake up earlier. Real intent causes you to assume that God will appear to you every time you pray, and influences you to create a situation where you would not be rushed to end that visit.
Real intent causes you to pour out your soul.
In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears. (Psalms 18:6)
Real intent causes you to pray as if your life depended on it. Peter prayed with real intent when, as he was trying to walk on water, he lost faith and began to sink in the turbulent water: “...he cried, saying, Lord, save me.” (Matthew 14:30) The disciples prayed with real intent when they woke up the Lord on another occasion as their boat was sinking in a storm. “And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.” (Matthew 8:25)
God has provided a vivid type of what praying with real intent looks like in sexual intercourse. In fact, one reason God created our sexual characteristics is to teach us about our relationship with him.
13 ...Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
16 ...know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. (1 Corinthians 6)
Marital relations teach us to subjugate our body to another entity, in this case a husband or wife. It trains us in what it takes to subjugate our body to God. In our daily, visible, tangible interactions with our spouse, we can learn how to submit our own concerns to the concerns of another. Gradually, we can learn how to do the same with an unseen God whose needs are not as easily discerned as our spouse.
3 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. (2 Corinthians 7)
Good sex requires total, absolute focus. No one stops to scratch an itch. No one stops to talk about an idea that just popped in their heads. There is utterly complete focus. Good sex takes time, and there is a preliminary process to ensure a positive experience. It is not something you can do while thinking only about yourself. In fact, it is most intense when you focus totally on your spouse’s desires.
Like sex, good prayer results both in waves of euphoria and a culminating climax of communion—but with God instead of your spouse. This is a concentrated feeling of love in being one with him and being in his presence. Good prayer will drive you to desire more good prayer. As more time passes from the last good prayer, one’s desire to again experience it increases.
Sex teaches us how our communion with God matures. At first, an individual pursues sex solely as a way to satisfy their own desires. As they mature, they begin to see that the best sex occurs when both partners are consummately seeking the welfare of the other. If prayer is used for asking for one’s desires, this is a cheap substitute for real prayer. God consummately seeks our welfare. When we make prayer a matter of seeking and submitting to his will, and focus our entire being to that end, prayer becomes the immensely positive experience it is meant to be.
Real intent doesn’t quit. Knowing God is hard. There is no shortcut. It takes time. Even the Lord, who was perfect, required hours of prayer per day in order to establish the required connection with his Father. Should we expect to be able to do this in less time being so much less than Jesus? Many say, “well, I do not have that kind of time.” The Lord said, “the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and [makes people] unfruitful. (Matthew 13:22) When the care of the world chokes off your prayer, choke it back! Every time you turn away from a potential distraction to your prayer, God will recognize it as evidence of your real intent. The cares of the world have far too much control over Christians.
22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.
23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.
24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?
25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?
26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?
27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?
29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.
30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Luke 12)
Your relationship with God is more important than anything in this world. Don’t let the world abort your relationship with God before it is consummated. When you have real intent, you won’t quit praying until your prayer is answered. The Lord taught the parable of the importunate widow to illustrate that we should not give up until our prayers are answered:
1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; 5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? (Luke 18)
How long will you have to pray before God grants you what you desire? It could take one quick prayer, several hours of prayer, several days of prayer, and maybe even months or years. There is no set time. To be successful, you have to be resigned to pray daily with real intent for as long as it takes, even for the rest of your life. The Lord blesses those who persist in seeking him:
6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: (Romans 2)
When God grants you a taste of what is possible, it will be enough to motivate you to try for however long it takes. When Joshua accompanied Moses into the tabernacle, he would remain behind even after Moses had left:
8 And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle.
11 And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. (Exodus 33:8,11)
Joshua had real intent in seeking the Lord. You should, too. Without real intent, our prayers will never draw us from the cares of the world into the peace and power that a relationship with God can offer. When we practice real intent, we will achieve the kinds of prayers we are meant to have.