DWQA QuestionsCategory: PrayerThe same prayer, of course, can be said in any language. From this, it can be gleaned the power and purpose of prayers are not the words or semantics of the prayer, but rather as an aid, a tool, a means by which INTENT can be shaped in the mind of the person offering the prayer. As people differ in their attributes, outlooks, and sentiment, is “one prayer fits all” a far from optimal approach?
Nicola Staff asked 3 years ago
What you point out is quite correct, that no two people are identical, and for this reason, no two people launching the same prayer wording will hold the exact identical intention. It will always be shaded in various ways from their own personal understanding, their own life experience, the difficulties they have endured, the yearning within them for something better, the fear they may be holding about someone’s fate that might be at stake in what happens next, especially if divine assistance is slow in coming because other avenues have been exhausted and a divine intervention is the only hope, and so on. People pray for all kinds of reasons and from all kinds of vantage points: station in life, relative success or failure, affluence or poverty, youth and vitality or when elderly and frail, and perhaps even bedridden with a chronic ailment. So, much that goes into prayer because it is really a function of intention more than the words themselves, people, by being themselves will, without question, create unique intentions and shades of meaning and purpose even when given the same stock prayer wording as a suggestion to be used. To be sure, any prayer will have limits because it is not all-encompassing nor could any single prayer truly be. If a prayer is quite global in reach, it will lack much specificity and without someone pausing to add many words within their own mind, the intention for many components that might fall under that broad outreach if unstated cannot be addressed by the divine realm because the intention is lacking. So standard prayers have great value and will still allow a wide latitude of intention to be honored, but it is important for people to understand if they want their prayer to mean something, they must hold the intention of that something as they say the words and not assume the magic is in the words themselves and that a divine blessing will be conjured up exactly to their liking. It is a fine line here we are trying to get at. You may know what you want, but not state it or even hold the intention precisely as you are saying a general prayer. So while we know there is something you are wanting because we know all about you and the flow of your thoughts from moment to moment, if an intention to have a change of some kind is not coupled to a prayer that is launched purposefully, calling on the divine by name, we cannot act and you become no different than the non-believer who wants many things better in their lives but will not get them because they may not be doing the right things, or have access to the means to make their life improve, and are also not asking divine help and support and are left on their own as a consequence. So intention is everything and deserves careful thought in how you live your life and interact with us through prayer.