{"id":16145,"date":"2011-07-06T12:22:45","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T17:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=16145"},"modified":"2011-07-06T13:58:04","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T18:58:04","slug":"a-primer-on-mormon-prayer-deciding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2011\/07\/a-primer-on-mormon-prayer-deciding\/","title":{"rendered":"A Primer on Mormon Prayer: Deciding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prayer can be approached as a means or as an end<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re tired of using God as a crutch to get wherever else you want to go and finally decide, throwing it all over, to just make God your explicit destination. Consecration it is. The kingdom of God or nothing.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re a Mormon. And you\u2019re relieved.<\/p>\n

From now on, when you get out of bed in the morning, getting-up won\u2019t just involve (on a good day) a passing prayer but will be for the sake<\/em> of prayer. You\u2019ll still eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast, but instead of praying so that you can pour the milk, you\u2019ll set out the bowl, the spoon, the milk, the sugar shaker, the cereal as an occasion for prayer. You\u2019ll still drive to work, but instead of praying in order to drive, you\u2019ll slide behind the wheel in order to pray. You\u2019ll tie your shoes, smooth your son\u2019s hair, button your shirt, and kiss the nape of your wife\u2019s neck as<\/em> a prayer.<\/p>\n

You can approach this new kind of work either haphazardly or systematically.<\/p>\n

If approached haphazardly, you\u2019ll probably only pray when you need something and, thus, you\u2019ll probably only pray as a means to some other end.<\/p>\n

If approached systematically, you\u2019ll still probably only prayer as a means to some other end \u2013 but there\u2019s a chance something else might happen.<\/p>\n

You give an intentional approach a try. You have to start somewhere. You decide to take up prayer as a practice, as a discipline, as a work, as your daily bread.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll have to decide a couple of things.<\/p>\n

First, what exactly<\/em> is it that you are trying to practice when you practice prayer? In particular, what exactly is it that you are trying to practice when you practice prayer as an end in itself<\/em> rather than as a means to some other end?<\/p>\n

Take the following as a guide. Whatever you take the essence of this practice to be, that practice must be literally extendable into the business of everything you do, every day.<\/p>\n

In short, the test is: whatever you take prayer to be, it must be possible to literally<\/em> \u201cpray always.\u201d The practice of prayer is anything but metaphorical. Entering into the rest of the Lord is anything but metaphorical.<\/p>\n

Second, you\u2019ll have to decide what concrete steps to take to actually practice <\/em>praying in this way. Maybe you\u2019re a prodigy who can play by ear . . . but probably not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prayer can be approached as a means or as an end. You\u2019re tired of using God as a crutch to get wherever else you want to go and finally decide, throwing it all over, to just make God your explicit destination. Consecration it is. The kingdom of God or nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16145"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16154,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145\/revisions\/16154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}