Prayer is the Theme of the Week

4 Asma 163 B.E. - August 23, 2006 A.D.


The basic theme of my blog entries so far this week has been prayer. On Monday, I said "Blessed is the Spot" before writing the blog entry and wrote about Earth being blessed because of God sending his Prophets or Manifestations. On Tuesday, I said "Intone My Servant" and wrote my thoughts on prayer. Today I said the short Obligatory Prayer (Baha'i Prayer Book, page 4) before starting this entry. Each of these prayer were revealed by Baha'u'llah.

Prayer is an important part of the life of a believer in God. It really doesn't matter which religion you follow because prayer is a part of all religions. Prayer is an important part of a person's relationship with God. The reason for this is one soul needs to communicate with the Divine Essence and the way to do this is through prayer. The soul is the lover and the Divine Essence is the Beloved. A prayer can be one revealed by one of God's Prophets or it can be the person talking directly to God or to the Prophet.

The first two prayers I memorized as a child was "Now I lay me down to sleep," and the Lord's Prayer. The next scripture verse I learn was the Lord is My Shepherd. I still remember them, but since becoming a Baha'i I have added to the prayers I know by heart. As one gets older it seems to be a little more difficult to memorize prayers, however, it is not impossible. Now when I want to memorize a prayer, I read it aloud in the "privacy of my chamber" everyday; eventually I find that I have learned the prayer by heart. I have found that the longer the prayer, the more difficult it is to memorize; still it isn't impossible it just takes persistence.