by Roman Del Bosque

Created on: April 19, 2010

What gives prayer its power is not the words we utter during prayer, nor how we say them, or even for how long we pray. Instead, the power of prayer comes from how much belief we can pack into the act of praying. The more belief we inject into our prayers, the greater the chance of having our prayers answered to our satisfaction. Belief, faith, both play a role in the process of answered prayer. As does a sense of expectancy. Without these, our prayers will rarely, if ever at all, be answered according to our desires.

What is prayer? To many, the act of praying is shrouded in mystery. To this group, the act of prayer is simple: they pray in a way that was taught to them by either family members or the clergy in their church. To others, the act of praying involves the repeated use of words and phrases, in a chant-like manner, which they believe is what will lead to answered prayer. Still others engage in rituals of one form or another which are supposed to influence God in answering their prayers favorably. What form of prayer is best for having our prayers answered?

Before we can answer this question, we must first ask ourselves another: What exactly is prayer?

In the book of Matthew, Jesus said, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." (21:22) Immediately, we find that one thing prayer cannot be is idle chatter, chanting or talking. This kind of praying does not lead to positive results. The reason why it doesn't is because there is no creative force behind it. The most effective prayers are those that combine focused, concentrated thinking to strong emotional responses in our minds and bodies that produce a strong and powerful sense of expectation for a thing desired.

When these elements are missing from the act of prayer, our petitions are not answered because in its most basic form the act of prayer is sharply focused thought, or thinking, that elicit powerful emotional responses in our minds and bodies. This then lead to a personal sense or feeling of "expectation," that is, the knowing that what we have prayed for will not only come to pass, but has actually already occurred in that precise moment in our minds. In other words, the act of belief and faith first occurs in our minds, which then translates to its appearance in the physical world, i.e., our lives.

Thus, effective prayer is the result of combining our highly creative thought to our powerfully charged emotions and feelings which then naturally lead to a personal sense of expectation. This sense of expectation, when we study it carefully, is what we commonly know as "belief," and we must remember that Jesus said: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing (in other words expecting), ye shall receive." Therefore, it's not the act of praying which leads to having our prayers answered; it's what results from combining our creative thought to our powerful emotions during the act of prayer. The results from the combining of these is belief! And belief is just another word for expectation.

The act of prayer leads to belief, which then leads to a strong sense of expectation. Conclusion: only when we expect to receive shall we indeed receive.    

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