Effective Prayer

A few great points were made in our Sunday School class last week about prayer.  1.  It was stressed that prayer is 2-way communication with our Heavenly Father.  How many of us pray but don't give God time to respond?  Too often many of our prayers may be a one-sided telephone conversation where we quickly list what we want God to do for us and then immediately hang up the phone.

2. Another good point was that God is not Santa Clause.  Do our prayers more resemble a Christmas wish-list?  In reality, instead of only thanking God for what we can think of and asking God for only those things we want, we can more effectively pray by asking God to know what we should be thankful for and asking Him what we should ask for. God teaches us that if we allow, He will direct and refine our prayers.

3. Prayer is not about ordering God around or trying to change God's mind but instead aligning our will with His. True faith, hope, and charity is about develiping our desire to seek and do God's will above our own and giving our whole souls as an offering to our Heavenly Father.  

Jesus Christ who exemplified the pure and  perfect love for the Father in all things continually taught that He taught and did nothing of Himself but only what His Heavenly Father willed. Because of Christ's charity and love for His Father's will above all else, Christ was empowered to be better and do better than anyone who has ever lived. President Benson often taught that we should "give our lives to God because He can do more with it than we can".