Effective Prayer - Softcover

Pineda, Sergio M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 198220558X ISBN 13: 9781982205584

Verlag: Balboa Press, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

This book explains how prayer truly works, instead of simply expressing a desperate verbal expression for divine intervention. This book goes beyond the simple thoughts and prayers that people express when they witness tragedy or stress. It gives clear solutions on how to proceed to bring relief and true hope to those affected with pain.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Guided by passion and a strong desire to find purpose in the spiritual writings of many religions, Sergio M. Pineda set out to write his most profound discovery after the long suffering and death of various family members and friends. Through research of various religions and philosophies he has enhanced his life and expectations from all that surrounds him. Most importantly he has discovered that a sinner can rediscover his Creator, his purpose in this life and the route to prosperity with religious indifference. Sergio M. Pineda is an American writer born in Colombia, an Ivy League graduate of Brown University with a B.A. in Industrial Economics. He is the president of a successful design/build firm and a Hotel company and has completed important commercial projects throughout the United States. Mr. Pineda resides in Houston, Texas where he plans to continue his writings and other projects of giving to his family and community. You can express your comments to Sergio M. Pineda by emailing him at SergPineda@aol.com.

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Effective Prayer

By Sergio M. Pineda

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2018 Sergio M. Pineda
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-982205-58-4

Contents

Introduction, ix, 
Chapter 1 Why Do We Pray?, 1, 
Chapter 2 Who Do We Pray To?, 13, 
Chapter 3 The Divine Cycle, 23, 
Chapter 4 Seeking Wisdom, 31, 
Chapter 5 The Lord's Prayer, 45, 
Chapter 6 Thoughts About Prayer, 49, 
Chapter 7 How To Talk, 61, 
Chapter 8 The Action Empowers The Word, 67, 
Chapter 9 Challenges and How Does it Affect Our Prayers, 83, 
Appendix, 93, 

CHAPTER 1

WHY DO WE PRAY?

* * *

Every one of us prays so that our expectations may come to be realized, or for our suffering to go away. I am not an exception to the daily suffering that affects all of us. It was a few years ago that a personal crisis hit me hard. I saw my older brother slowly wasting away and finally succumbing to cancer. That's when I used to pray like crazy, several times a day, hoping that he would be saved from such a dreaded disease. I became frustrated with my religion when I saw that my prayers, and my family's and even those spoken by my preacher at church went unanswered. "Prayer is worthless, I thought, it had not produced any desired result for my brother or for myself." But I was wrong. At the time we just did not know how to pray.

Worse of all, I saw thousands of people praying like crazy every Sunday at church, and then go back home to continue with their same problems and sufferings, with no visible improvement in their lives. Yet, those same people that I saw at church prayed with such devotion and such hope that it motivated me to start exploring the reality of prayer in a more technical manner, and to find its purpose in this life.

Many who do not see the immediate and materialistic result to prayer, simply ignore any possibility of God's presence even if they claim to be believers.

We pray because we pursue happiness. The only way to achieve happiness is by pleasing the soul. No matter how healthy or rich we may be, if something inside affects our feelings in a negative manner, we will never be happy. We hear constant stories about rich and famous people that were surrounded by every imaginable pleasure, yet they fell into suicidal depressions. Our spiritual side must be attended to and the only way to do this is through effective prayer. What I have discovered is that lifting my eyes to the heavens and thinking about God or speaking out a request is not a complete prayer. It is only a temporary invocation, and therefore it is not enough. A casual introverted muttering such as "Lord help me" may or may not be heard by God. In fact, I believe that silent prayers can NOT be heard by God. Neither is believing the new age mantra that everything is all about "positive attitude".

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute ... The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute". - George B. Shaw

The positive and negative thinkers, each has their valid points of view and each has a different expectation of what a good answer from God will be. I believe that God gave us freedom of thought so that we could explore all our options – good and bad – before expressing them out loud. He cannot hear your proper presentation unless you express it out loud and with an implemented plan.

Praying for myself

I must say here that Prayer is effective when the person prays for himself or herself. Not so effective when he prays for others. The reason is because when a person prays he demonstrates a willingness to change.

This book is for the person that wants to improve his or her life by getting God to respond. What this person needs to realize first, is that life is a series of moments lived in cycles and that we usually carry out these cycles mostly by habit and not very well thought out. These cycles which are sometimes described as laws of eventuality", where a person that smokes cigarettes or eats excessively eventually finds himself or herself sick, are actions that are never projected into the future and yet they are the cause of ailments that we then try to correct with prayer.

Because prayer is a specific request, before requesting anything from someone, wouldn't I have to answer some questions about myself and about my capabilities?

I can't simply ask for a car without knowing beforehand how I would drive it, maintain it, how I would use it, where would I go with it and whether my eyesight was good enough.

Certainly, I would have to have some knowledge about the person I am addressing my request to, and what this request is all about. More importantly, what purpose will this request serve?

We pray because we want something. The chances of success in finding something or someone are based on a process. To search in a disorganized manner, without knowing the terrain and without the appropriate tools, is to search in vain. Your chances are the same as winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

To pray is to look for answers from God and finding God is fortunately a relatively easy thing to do. But to be successful in our prayer we must be in condition to pray, in the same way that a football player must be in a good physical condition to play.

Knowing all these things and addressing them to God, in a proper way, is a prayer.

Doing it within a process makes it an effective prayer.

The things you hide in your heart ... Eat you alive! – unknown

What do people really pray about? Generally, we ask God's favor for help in satisfying one of the pleasures of life, or in turning things around so that we may once again enjoy the pleasures of life. Basically, we ask for the removal of pain. No one really likes the pain that comes about as we lose our pleasures. But in a world that has two opposing sides to everything, where a person treads in the balance between good and bad, between light and dark, it is easy to tumble and fall out of grace into the opposite side of pleasure.

Praying for others:

"If you are not making someone else's life better, then you are wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other people's lives better" – Will Smith

The person praying for others is hoping that the other person will change, and that is a different story because God may not interfere with the other person's free will.

However, granting LOVE to others is the faster and more effective manner of praying for someone else.

I have always been bothered that at the sign of a tragedy many people will send thoughts and prayers as though this was an effective way to help the victims.

Instead what I learned is that, if the person sends Love, in a manner that satisfies one of life's pleasures, to the victim(s), this recipient does get relief. And relief, even if only temporary, is a blessing. Sending thought and prayers is an empty effort unless you are willing to offer some alleviation to the anguish of the victim.

How is this love expressed? Simple, by granting a bit of one or more of the following pleasures:

1. FOOD and TASTE "My wife is upset with me ... but still made me great supper"

2. RESTFUL SLEEP "He worked until late ... next morning keep quiet"

3. COMFORT AND SECURITY "Your bills are paid ... I got some groceries for you"

4. AROMATIC SCENT "Let's go for a walk through the garden"

5. MUSIC AND RHYTHMIC WORDS. "Would you like me to read you some poetry or play your favorite...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Balboa Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 198220558X
• ISBN 13: 9781982205584
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 110
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland