PRAY ALWAYS
[Talk given by John E. Enslen at sacrament meeting at the Wetumpka Ward on December 11, 2012.]
I speak today by way of assignment from the stake president with a full realization that a visiting high councilor is not without honor save in his own ward. The stake president has asked me to speak to the Wetumpka members specifically about the subject of personal prayer. I sustain my stake president with a sure knowledge that he receives revelation for the benefit of the members of our stake, including the members of this ward.
Prayer does not require extraordinary effort. A small child can pray. Prayer does not consume a large amount of time. An important prayer can be accomplished in five minutes. Prayer does not require any special talent. Like the TV commercial says: “A cave man can do it.” Everyone can financially afford to pray because a prayer costs us nothing. In truth, prayer is a small and simple thing.
Yet, “by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” (Alma 37:6; see also 1 Ne. 16:29) “[B]y very small means the Lord doth…bring about the salvation of many souls.” (Alma 37:37) Without small and simple daily personal prayers, our religion never rises to the level of a belief system in action.
If we were to each have an unexpected personal interview with the Lord today, what do you think he might say to us? If He were to speak to each of us individually for, say, three straight hours, what would He talk about? We can read in the Book of Mormon about a man who had just such an unexpected experience. His name was Mahonri Moriancumer but is generally known only as the Brother of Jared, something to which a younger Jason McLaughlin could once relate.
“And it came to pass…that the Lord came…unto the brother of Jared, and stood in a cloud and talked with him. And for the space of three hours did the Lord talk with the brother of Jared, and chastened him because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord.
And the brother of Jared repented of the evil which he had done, and did call upon the name of the Lord….And the Lord said unto him: I will forgive thee…;but thou shalt not sin any more, for ye shall remember that my Spirit will not always strive with man; wherefore, if ye will sin until ye are fully ripe ye shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord.” (Ether 2:14-15)
Did we notice the direct connection between not communicating with God and not having His Spirit to be with us? Have we ever considered the word “evil” as an appropriate description of the prolonged failure to pray? Remember, it is “the evil spirit [that] teacheth [a man] that he must not pray.” (2 Ne. 32:8)
We can measure the importance that God places upon a subject by the number of times that particular subject is mentioned in the scriptures. There are 886 references in the Standard Works that contain the word “pray” or “prayer.”
There are 26 separate references to the two-word admonition to “pray always.” By studying these “pray always” scriptures, we can learn of the powerful and saving benefits that come from “praying always.”
But first, what does “pray always” mean? I take it to mean maintaining a continual attitude of prayer in our minds and hearts and regularly and consistently giving silent or verbal voice to that attitude throughout each day by means of direct communication with our Heavenly Father. It is the means by which we can stay close to Him throughout the day.
May I share with you some of the 26 scriptures referencing the powerful and saving benefits that are gained from “praying always?”
The benefit most often mentioned, and perhaps the greatest single benefit, comes in the form of spiritual protection against the power of the destroyer.
- Pray always, lest ye enter into temptation. (D & C 20:33; 31:12; 61:39; 3 Ne. 18:18)
- Pray always that ye may come off conqueror. (D & C 10:5)
- Pray always that ye may conquer Satan. (D& C 10:5)
- Pray always that ye may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work. (D & C 10:5)
- Pray always that ye faint not. (D & C 75:11; 88:126; 101:81)
- Pray always lest ye be tempted by the devil and be led away captive by him. (3 Ne. 18:15)
- Pray always lest that wicked one have power in you and remove you out of your place. (D & C 93:49-50)
- Pray always lest ye lose your reward. (D & C 31:12)
- Pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all things that shall come to pass. (Luke 21:36)
- “Praying always” is also the pathway to personal revelation. As we study Church history, we will be impressed with the number of times that revelation comes in response to a personal prayer that sought the very knowledge contained in the revelation.
- Pray always that I may unfold [revelation] to [your] understanding (D & C 32:4)…and pour out my Spirit upon you, and great shall be your blessing—yea, even more than if you should obtain treasures of earth….(D & C 19:38)
Our ability to serve in the Church and perform and accomplish good in the world is grounded in “praying always.”
- Pray always that our God would count you worthy of your calling. (2 Thess. 1:11)
- Pray always that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee. (2 Ne. 32:9)
- Pray always that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul. (2 Ne. 32:9)
In the absence of praying always, we will not be prepared for the Second Coming or the Judgment to follow, as attested by these “pray always” scriptures:
- Pray always that ye may be ready at the coming of the Bridegroom. (D & C 33:17)
- Pray always that ye may abide the day of his coming, whether in life or in death. (D & C 61:39)
- Pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of man. (Luke 21:36)
No man will be able to spiritually navigate safely through life without prayer.
I suppose the opposite of praying always is praying never, but a close second to that is probably praying only when we find ourselves in deep trouble. The Lord has spoken of such a people. When the Church was three and a half years old, the members in Missouri were being heavily persecuted, mainly in the form of being forcefully evicted from their properties, their household furnishings and livestock being stolen, and their crops being destroyed. The Lord declared in a revelation to the prophet Joseph that these afflictions had been allowed to come upon them because of their transgressions.
“Behold, I say unto you, there were jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires among them; therefore by these things they polluted their inheritances. They were slow to hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; therefore, the Lord their God is slow to hearken unto their prayers, to answer them in the day of their trouble. In the day of their peace they esteemed lightly my counsel; but, in the day of their trouble, of necessity they feel after me.” (D & C 101:6-8) “Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you.” (D & C 88:63)
At the last general conference, President Monson had this to say about prayer: “As a means of being in the world but not being of the world, it is necessary that we communicate with our Heavenly Father through prayer. He wants us to do so; He’ll answer our prayers. The Savior admonished us, as recorded in 3 Nephi 18, to “watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you.…” Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name; “And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you.” (Thomas S. Monson, Ensign, Nov. 2011)
President Monson continued: “Not a day has gone by that I have not communicated with my Father in Heaven through prayer. It is a relationship I cherish—one I would literally be lost without. If you do not now have such a relationship with your Father in Heaven, I urge you to work toward that goal. As you do so, you will be entitled to His inspiration and guidance in your life—necessities for each of us if we are to survive spiritually during our sojourn here on earth. Such inspiration and guidance are gifts He freely gives if we but seek them.” (Thomas S. Monson, Ensign, Nov. 2011) Communications with our Father in Heaven—including our prayers to Him and His revelations to us—are necessary in order for us to weather the storms and trials of life. Our prayers are a source of courage that will allow us to stand for truth and righteousness and be not moved in the face of a dark and immoral and downward spiraling world that seeks to destroy the family.
When the resurrected Savior appeared to the Nephites in the Western Hemishere, He said to them: “ Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.” (3 Ne. 18:21)
The most important element in any prayer is its sincerity, and God hears and answers the prayers of all sincere people throughout the earth. Nevertheless, we are blessed with revelatory insights that can elevate the quality of our prayers, if we follow the form that has been suggested by our Church leaders.
We address our prayers to our Heavenly Father, the same as Christ did when he prayed. Generally, there is no need to address our father by name but once—at the beginning of the prayer.
We thank our Heavenly Father for blessings which we have received at his hand. All of us are blessed with many things we take for granted day in and day out—our health, family, friends, finances, food, water, clothing, shelter, utilities, transportation, and medical services, just to name a few basics. If we are not careful, we will naturally tend to tune our minds away from feeling of gratitude and toward feelings that we do not have enough of those things.
Next, we ask our Heavenly Father for those blessings we feel that we need. They may be some of the things I just mentioned. In addition, we can ask for wisdom and good judgment in our decisions, for the protection of the Holy Ghost in our activities, for close family relationships and the temporal and spiritual welfare of family members, for our nation and its leaders and defenders, for missionary opportunities, and for the success of the work of the Kingdom and those who preside over and participate in that work. Indeed, there is no limit to the things over which we might pray.
Prayer is the approved means for obtaining blessings, but we must be careful not to ask selfishly. The apostle James explains: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” (James 4:3) The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but rather to secure for ourselves and others blessings that God is already willing and waiting to grant conditioned upon our asking for them.
We close the prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.
There is also a special language of prayer, sacred language that our Church leaders have asked us to use. When we use this sacred language, we show a greater respect and higher reverence for our Heavenly Father. As we practice this sacred language in our personal prayers, it becomes natural for us to use the same language in our public prayers.
The language to which I make reference substitutes the word “Thee” as the objective form of the common pronoun “You,” and “Thou” as the subjective form of the word “You.” When we use the word “Thou” as the subject of the sentence, we also change the verb so that it matches the reverent language. By way of example, we might say in a prayer, “Dear Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy many blessings and pray that Thou wilt protect us from evil this day.”
But I emphasize that sincerity always trumps form, and we should never neglect to pray because we have concerns about form. Once each of us has a firm testimony that God is truly and literally our father, and each of us is truly and literally a child of God, then prayer will be instinctive and regular on our part, just as we continuously depended on and communicated with our mortal parents when we were young children.
I have a testimony of prayer and its power. I cherish my alone time with my Heavenly Father. I have had many sacred experiences with the power of prayer. I am grateful for the privilege to communicate directly with Heavenly Father. He did not have to set up His communication system that way, but He did, and that fact alone demonstrates his deep love and concern for each of us.
May we all “pray always” I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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