Reflections on Prayer

Quotes from the Jewish Book of Prayer – ‘Siddur’

 Jane, a dear friend of mine from Israel, gave me a wonderful copy of the Siddur and this week I have begun my journey through this Jewish book of prayers. The following are quotes that I will use as a springboard to express some of my thoughts.

 “As a synonym for a human being the Mishnah uses the name mav’eh, an unfamiliar word that the Talmud derives from the root to pray. In other words the Talmud describes man as ‘the creature who prays.’ ”

 Interesting that the one thing which is unique to us as humans is our ability to pray. Because of this and because I am reminded of how important prayer was to our Lord, I am focusing on increasing my commitment to pray. I want to make sure that I spend real time praying and not be content with just intellectual knowledge about prayer.

 “Prayer is not a list of requests. It is an introspective process, a clarifying, refining process of discovering what one is, what he should be, and how to achieve the transformation. Indeed the commandment to pray is expressed by the Torah as a service of the heart, not of the mouth.”

 I know it is simplistic but prayer is a conversation with the Almighty, not just a conduit to express our daily requests. With that being said we need to incorporate both of these elements as part of our daily prayer diet. I believe intercessory prayer is a powerful weapon in the arsenal of the Believer and I think God desires us to be as specific in detail as we can. This is one of the reasons we have a prayer list connected to our KFIR Group. But as this quote indicates, something more is needed! We need time to discover who we are, who we should be! This takes focused TIME.   In order for this to happen we must be intentional.

 “Modern society has learned that people ‘burn themselves out’ if they never withdraw to relax and regain perspective and inner strength. What makes us think that we can fight the moral war demanded by God without removing ourselves from the trenches now and then to regain our perspective on the purpose and strategy of the battle?”

 Even the Creator of the Universe – the WORD of God – when becoming man knew His physical limitations. In the gospels we see Him rising early and getting some alone time with His Father. If He needed this, how much more so do we!

 “God’s degree of revelation in the universe is in proportion to Israel’s spiritual capacity to receive it.”

 I found this quote thought provoking! I often ask the Lord for a word, some insight or for some form of encouragement etc. but, after reading this, I wonder if I need to do more spiritual preparation on my part in order to receive what He has for me.

 “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

 This last quote is from Robert F. Kennedy and my friend, Lisa Miara, used it to conclude a recent blog of hers. When I read this I was reminded of another Jewish proverb from the Talmud that says: “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”

 Our time has come to make a difference in this fallen and ever-increasing dark world. We must be people of the Book, in order to know the heart of God, as well as people who PRAY in order to destroy spiritual strongholds of the enemy. Time for the Young Lions (KFIR) to ROAR!