Prayer

Hope Street, Inverkeithing, Fife

St Peter's Episcopal Church, Inverkeithing

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Prayer

When Jesus' disciples asked him to teach them how to pray He answered with the prayer "Our Father … ", the Lord's Prayer. We say the Lord's Prayer during every service when we pray in our church. Say it in your private prayers too. We cannot do better than pray as Jesus taught us.

Jesus also prayed when he was anxious or in trouble. Situations that come to mind are like when he was about to face up to the Pharisees or to death at Calvary. Pray for God's assistance when you have a problem. It could help. They say a problem shared is a problem halved. Share it with God.

Jesus went about healing the sick. Pray for others, the sick, those in trouble, all you feel need your prayers.

Give thanks to God for the blessings in your life and for prayers answered.

Of course, you don't necessarily need to say anything when you pray. You can just be with God. Spending time with God is a form of prayer.

Where to pray

Pray anywhere you like. God is always there, in every situation, although Jesus often went off by himself, to a quiet spot, like the Garden of Gethsemane or the desert. You could try, like Him, to find a quiet place by yourself or, if this is not possible, try the church. You could, perhaps, try a prayer group, like the one at Dalgety Parish Church, but anywhere will do. Look out for prayer meetings in other churches in the area.

What to say

Once you begin to pray you may find that your problems just come pouring out. However, it may be that you do not have a problem just now or are stuck for inspiration. An idea might be to follow the example of the monks of old and use a set form of prayer such as found in a prayer book. Whether you use the official prayer book of the church or any other book of prayers does not matter. Many people nowadays prefer an order of daily prayer that they can vary with circumstances rather than a fixed set of words.

Prayer books

Prayer books and orders of daily and evening prayer you could use are available on the Liturgy page of the main Scottish Episcopal Church website. Recommended is Daily Prayer 1988 a Short Form of Morning and Evening Prayer (163Kb Adobe Acrobat file), which combines tradition with space for silence, your own concerns or favourite prayers.

Some people in our church find New Daylight helpful. New Daylight is a set of daily Bible Reading Notes from the Bible Reading Fellowship.

Many more prayer books are available at religious bookshops such as:

· the Wesley Owen Bookshop in Edinburgh, or

· the Faith Mission Bookshop in Dunfermline (Christian Bookshops website).

Prayers online

A growing modern trend is for guided daily prayers online. If you want inspiration for daily prayers, you could try one of the following:

· Daily Prayer on the Rejesus website,

· Pray Now Prayers on the Church of Scotland website.

More information

The Rejesus website gives more about how to pray.

Pray on every occasion, as the Spirit leads.

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How to pray

You can say anything you like when you pray. God won't mind. Just say what is in your heart. You may ask, if God knows what is in my heart, why do I need to bother praying? The answer I have heard is that if you make what is in your heart one with his, you will make yourself one with God. Try it.