How To Pray

[THIRDpersonviewer]

I am talking about being asked to open or close a class with a nonrehearsed spontaneous prayer. I'm not talking about specific prayers like the blessing of Sacrament or the Lords Prayer.

I once read from the words of Elder McConkie, that our public prayers should be short, the essence of the prayer being, a petition concerning the current feelings of the occasion. If it just rained and that was needed, then exress gratitude, call upon God for the Spirit to be there, whatever you feel and see are needs for the occasion. Whatever should be reflected on. But it should not go on for 5 minutes and be filled with every eloquent word you can think of or whatever.

The idea as I see it and understand it, speak in your words, with your heart, and about the occasion.

A note on the last thing. Keep things appropriate to the situation by praying for things pertaining to the group. I.E you might have a personal need that you feel in your heart and you are praying to God in your heart but you don't necessarily need to pray about that with the group. So be mindful of what is appropriate for the group. Another quick idea is that when closing a meeting I feel it is okay to mention what is discussed, and maybe it is something that you learned, but praying for the help to apply and implement the principle into your life is appropriate so those prayers may be short they may be longer. I feel the idea of a closing prayer should send us off more motivated to act on what was taught, and some prayers do and I go right home from church and start moving to implement what I learned other prays are just like okay yeah we said the prayer, talk to people go home, eat, play games with family or whatever else that is more relaxing rather than remembering the Lord. I am not saying or blaming my inaction on the prayers, but that prayer may have been the last spiritual boost from the meetings I needed to get me over the hump and get acting. You never know. I'm not making a point that prayer MUST be that way, but merely that there wonderful blessings from closing prayers.