I Pray Now This Way Everyday to God (The Brief Story of the Evolution of My Prayer ! )

During my early childhood, I still remember the way my grandmother (mother of my father) taught me to pray to God. I was too young at that time and was perhaps just a toddler. I was just beginning to understand and talk in my mother tongue, Malayalam. Yet I remember the day when she attempted to teach me the prayer and continued to pray that way later for many years. Often silently before I go to sleep in the night ! 

That prayer was simple and I demanded nothing much from the unseen God but just a request to take care of me and those in my family.

Later in the adolescent years partial learning of science and the readings of the writings by the so-called rationalists made me confused about the existence of God to some degree, though not fully. But yet I remembered God in my thoughts quite often. My prayer had now become shortened to just a salutation, that too in my thoughts. And it remained that way later for many years so long as I faced no threats and troubles.

But during the days of problems and sickness, I used to pray to God for his help and often I found that His comfort reached me miraculously. 

For me God was like an unseen father somewhere and I was just comfortable not to have any form of image of Him in my mind while I thought about Him. The Creator of the Universes cannot be comprehended and encapsulated in the form of some image of His creations. That reasoning was quite logical.

Though the religion of my parents, Christianity and the writings of its holy book, Bible initiated and enhanced my concepts of God, it was never complete or perfect. In reality, it was also some cause for me to doubt in the existence of God.

As I have explained in many of my earlier blogs in this site, the Urantia Book was the source ( and it still is) that gave me the opportunity to view life altogether differently and in a wholesome manner. The encounter with this source of information  I consider as the greatest fortune I got in my life. The immense treasure of revealed knowledge in this book has been the agent that allowed my imperfect concepts of life and God to advance and progress to much refinement.

My belief in God has now become stabilized and I have no doubts about that now. Besides, I understand why this world is like what it is now. The immense plans of God are getting more and more clear to me and I am able to appreciate and admire it even with my limited mind capacity. 

My prayer too have evolved. I realize the importance of keeping in touch with God through my prayers. But I do not pray to Him for worldly pleasures and material goals ! He knows what I need !

Now, I spend some time every day almost always in the evening to have our family prayer. The prayer, translated in English, is something like the following: 

" Our Heavenly Father !

This time we come to your presence, O God. Thank you for the opportunity that You have provided for that.

We thank you and praise you for keeping us well under your care and protection.

We thank you and praise you for keeping us under your protection for all these years right from our childhood.

We thank you and praise you because you are the source of our lives.

We thank you and praise you because you have given us the right to be considered as your children and the right you have given us to call you as our father.

We thank you for keeping us protected from all the dangers and sicknesses and other troubles that we face now in this world. We thank you for giving us the strength to over come such problems. We thankfully remember the times you have provided us comfort during the times of our miseries.

We thank you for giving us all that material things that we deserve to live  in this world so far even at times when there are problems and turmoil all around us.

We know, God, that we live in an imperfect world of evil and we have the faith in you that you will not allow us to be perished here.

We believe in your eternal plans for us which give us the confidence to live peacefully and confidently in this world. 

God, we know and admit that we are imperfect humans of limited knowledge and capacity. We know that we have human weaknesses that cause us to commit errors in our lives. We earnestly pray for forgiveness for all the errors and sins that we might have committed in our lives knowingly or unknowingly.

We pray for your forgiveness for all errors that we have committed in our words, thoughts and deeds.

We also pray to you for strengthening us in our body, mind and spirit so that we could live a life in accordance with your wish in this world.

Father, keep guiding us daily so that we live according to your wish. Give us the wisdom to know what is good and what is bad always.

God, we pray for all in the family and our dear ones. Keep them under your watch and protection.

We pray for all individuals in our family. Provide each one what is needed. Strengthen each one in body, mind and spirit. 

We pray for our world and all the people of this world. Have your mercy and providence to all in this world. 

Do not allow evil to pervade this world. Give us the knowledge and the wisdom to transform this world to one as per your liking just as those others in the heavens.

Teach us to live following the good path. 

Give us the mental strength to forgive those who might work against us and do harm to us either knowingly or unknowingly. 

Strengthen us to do our daily works sincerely and truthfully and in a manner that is pleasing to you.

We know God that our lives in this world are only for some years. But we also know about your promise of giving us a future life of eternal adventure even after our material deaths in this world. Make us God, worthy of that future everlasting lives.

Keep us God in your protection and care in our future days and years so long as we live in this world. 

Give us all the good that we may need.

In the name of Jesus Christ we pray.

Amen. "

Dear reader, you might wonder why my prayer ended in the name of Jesus Christ. As a person born in a Christian family and as per the Christian traditions we used to pray that way earlier. But to admit frankly, I was not sure of its purpose. But now, the book I have mentioned above removed all those doubts. I now know who is Jesus Christ for sure and why I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Elsewhere in my other blogs you could read much about those.