Issue Regarding Prayer

My prayer life and personal relationship with God is really growing. I have an issue though. When I pray I start feeling guilty for asking God for blessings for myself and others. I feel like I'm asking too much of him knowing that he has already blessed me so much in my life. It's not that I prey to ask for favors, I spend a lot of time talking with and thanking God for his presence in my life. But I spend some time asking God to give this person strength, give this person health, show this person mercy and so on.

After my near death experience when I ascended to heaven in a bright white light and was asked if I wanted to stay with him or return to my physical body I have an new relationship with him. I talk to him as a son would to a father or friend but again I feel guilty asking more of him through prayer knowing that he already gave me the ultimate blessing through my near death experience (I stopped breathing in the ICU and was on a ventilator for 10 days last month).

At church service this past Sunday we discussed the importance and power of prayer and I would like to know how you pray and what your opinion is on my prayer issue. Is it OK to ask for so much?

Thank you all and God bless you....

I think it's in our very given nature to feel a sense of guilt or asking too much sometimes. For me, there is no right or wrong way to pray. I mostly just talk and sometimes I laugh and think I'm probably putting the Lord straight to sleep with my ramblings. But because prayer is so sacred to me, I feel almost like He's opened His gates just for us to connect, it's in prayer that I do feel that closeness because I feel like it's just "us".

My sister is a fine example. She said the Blessing before we ate the other day and she thanked God for our meal etc..then she went on to ask God to keep those she loves in good health, and she began naming everyone she knew and asking a personal blessing for each of them. That situation made me think that it "IS" almost as though God opens the flood gates when we pray and we do have a tendency to ask what we might consider later as a lot. Or even feel guilty. Heck I've even said another prayer later apologising for asking too much LOL!
My point is, I thought my sisters prayer was so innocent and so beautiful and so much like how I pray myself, that it gave me a sense of relief or reassurance that I "was" praying correctly. Because noone taught her how to pray, she just knew.

I think God knows what we desire in our hearts and He is probably grateful that we even take the time to come to Him personally and ask for assistance. So even though we'll probably continue to feel as though we might be asking a lot of Him, nothing is too great for our Lord.

PS: I did not know until now about your near death experience. I must admit that I'm honoured to be responding to someone who was nearly no longer here with us a few days ago..

My mother used to talk to me about the love of God. I remember her holding me on her lap and rocking, telling me about it. She would tell me that God loves us so much that he actually gave up his son for us. "Can you imagine the love he must have for us"? she would say as tears trickled down her cheeks.

She had 7 children and could not imagine giving any one of their lives for anything.

So if my mother knew anything (and I believe she did) your requests to God are a blessing to his ears. He loves you so much that he wants to hear every single thing your heart desires. He wants you to ask.

You know the love you felt when you had your recent experience. I would think that knowing that love and accepting it is a hard thing for any of us to do. It's hard for me to accept that my husband loves me as much as he does. We all have feelings of not being worthy.

But when I read your post here, I remembered my mother trying to convey the love of God. And I just think that if he loves you that much, surely he wants to hear what you want and what you have to say.

I don't pray so have no experiences to share, but I did want to tell you what my mother taught me.

[edit on 4-4-2006 by Benevolent Heretic]

I don't really pray much, me and the Big Guy have sort of a running internal dialogue. We mostly chat during meditation sessions.

I wouldn't worry that God thinks you're asking too much. I think that God would approve of the fact that you care for others and pray for them.

magestica, Benevolent Heretic, Duzey...thank you so much for your personal experiences and opinions. I need to remember as you have said that God wants to hear these things from us. I'm just not used to asking for so much so often. I prey when I wake and just before sleep so that's a lot of blessing requests from God. I never ask anything for myself..well I do ask that God shows me what he wants from me and request he uses my life for his glory but never do I ask for financial gain or other worthless materialistic items.

Anyway thanks again everyone...God bless you...

PS: BH and Duzey God would love to hear from you, he loves you more than you know...

[edit on 4-4-2006 by kinglizard]