Effective Prayer - Softcover

Pineda, Sergio M

Softcover

ISBN 10: 198220558X ISBN 13: 9781982205584

Publisher: Balboa Press, 2018

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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 record?"

6. TOUCH AND SEX "Cuddling time"

7. WELLNESS "How about a walk this morning?"

8. COMPANIONSHIP "I am visiting mom this afternoon"

9. KNOWLEDGE "I will get you the information on that tax issue

10. BEAUTY & ORDER "Macy's is having a sale on your favorite today? "Let's paint that outside porch"

11. INSPIRATION "How about a visit to the museum today?"

12. ECSTASY "Thank you, I really needed that!"

13. PEACE / SERENITY "When was the last time you looked up at the stars and saw the Milky Way?

14. PURPOSE "You are excellent at ___________"

15. RECOGNITION "I really admire you for ___________"

16. PARENTHOOD "What a beautiful bundle of joy"

When you do this for others, you remove for that moment any feeling of stress and depression. There is no greater pleasure than receiving one of these favors and especially when you receive them on a daily basis from someone who shows Care.

We do not categorize our prayers, but in general we address a topic that is related to the opposite of these pleasures.

"You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone. Only you are not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found That makes the emptiness bearable, is each other" – Carl Sagan

No person likes Hunger, Stress, Abandonment, Rottenness, Noise, Loneliness, Sickness, Ignorance, Ugliness, Depression, Pain, Despair, Poverty, Indifference, Insignificance and Sterility and yet all are the darker sides of life we ask God for help in removing.

Acts of love such as acts of mercy, acts of charity, acts of compromise, acts of patience, acts of forgiveness and acts of giving are all actions of EFFECTIVE praying for someone else.

I personally experienced the pain of living with a person that had an addiction. I loved this person immensely and tried all forms of helping and praying for him. I prayed for years and nothing happened to change his condition. It was a case of praying like crazy and nothing happened. The harder I tried the angrier he got. But in time, what I grew to realize is that prayer changed ME. And I started to accept the fact that if I loved him that much, then I had to live and accept his condition. And the only way I could help was by granting him Love whenever it was possible. Giving a bit of one of these pleasures EVERYDAY if he was accessible, in temper or physical condition, to receive it. So I satisfied, or tried my best to satisfy a bit of those pleasures I describe above. Many would call it enabling, and many including the addict would say that his condition was my fault; but in granting acts of love and giving I discovered peace for both of us because the addict simply seeks and believes what his own subconscious mind tells him is necessary for his survival. So by praying for him in this manner the relationship works despite the sorrow of seeing the addict slowly waste away.

Ever wonder why hard liquors are called Spirits? The answer may be thousands of years old when the Arabs called the drinks Al-ghawl or Al-ghoul by Europeans, and referred in the Koran (verse 37:47) to a drink of bad effect, demonic or evil result.

Even then, Muslim mankind knew that these drinks summoned and then released spirits or ghouls of evil onto the human soul. Christianity in America pushed for Prohibition for the same reason. In fact, The United States is so tormented by alcohol that it is the only country that has two constitutional amendments regarding alcohol. One that prohibits and one that allows it. In time, we discovered that these spirits can be released by many other substances and that a simple governmental law mandating them illegal is no deterrent against the Devil's effort to control a person.

However, we have come to scientifically realize that most of our personal problems arise as a result of living in a society where issues that cause pain and anxiety are related to bad drinking, poor diets or addictive behavior. These prevent the person from acquiring the necessary knowledge or wisdom to see clearly through his/ her problems.

But personal and effective prayer is the answer to displace the devils influence and limit his access to the human body. In fact, only by turning to God in effective prayer, one can rid him or herself of addiction. It is the ONLY way. Do not waste time in psychiatry or medication for they are only temporary solutions. Any AA member will tell you this!

Evil is a real force that dwells inside the human spirit to prevent us from enjoying the pleasures that God wants to give us. At some early point in our lives that evil entered in some form of trauma and started to control our subconscious thought process. For many years that evil prevents us from doing any self soul search or pursuit of wisdom. Evil will trade you a single moment of overindulgence for a lifetime of pain. If you do not believe this look at a person that got drunk one night but is now in jail (or in pain) for life. The reason for his jail time is not important. The question should be: why was evil in control?

Evil is not threatened by intelligence but it is very afraid of wisdom. Therefore, it is a force that can be displaced by prayer.

To help the wounded loved one, you must take his hand –physically take his hand – and pray with that person. In that prayer session ask the questions that trouble his/her mind and then find what pleasure you can provide.

People in pain have trouble releasing the information that is needed to affect a positive change because evil does not want to identify itself. To help that person, prayer is effective when there is a one to one connection. The prayer for another in which you hold his hand is to obtain information and understanding. Do not attempt to give advice or be judgmental when a person starts to release his deepest thoughts.

I experienced the sad passing of my brother from bone cancer. Throughout the long and painful ordeal I prayed for him to be cured. But what I failed to realize was that he was not praying for the same things I was praying for. In both the addict and the infirm I was praying for what I BELIEVED they should be doing or should happen to them, as though I wanted to control the situation. It was my prayer, according to MY judgement. But not theirs. Inside their minds and their hearts they had different desires and different opinions of how they wanted their condition to develop - or not develop. For them it was a "thanks, but no thanks" situation where they accepted my prayer (but dismissed my effort and advise) because they had plans of their own for dealing with their issues.

You can change yourself, but you can't change anyone else unless THEY make the determination to change. That person needs to find through HIS own prayer what is their new reality for survival and happiness. Sometimes when YOU change yourself, others will be encouraged to change by seeing your efforts, determination and success.

You may inspire them and that inspiration will be an answer to YOUR prayers for them.

You can pray for others that an ailment may go away but that prayer will not be answered until the person with the sickness is determined to confront the root of the problem along with all its associations. That change, with the time and commitment required to obtain the cure, is the difficulty. Anyone who has tried changing any habit, a diet, an exercise program, an image of themselves realizes how difficult it is. But in the meantime, understand that life is a series of moments and that in each of those moments you have the ability to grant a bit of pleasure to your loved one, to help him or her deal with their struggle. God rewards your giving and also extends the life of the loved one.

The purpose of effective prayer is to focus on pleasures and pray to obtain and maintain them. We seek these pleasures because they are the natural antidotes to depression, anxiety, anger, hatred, ignorance and a series of other causes of pain.

It is easier to ask for God's grace and help when you are blessed that to ask for His favor once you have fallen into the darkness and you seek salvation from the antithesis of pleasure. After all, when you are granted any of the pleasures you are receiving a blessing, and when you don't have them, you hurt.

Because our existence is based on the concept of duality, where we need others to give and receive, our prayers will be cause and consequence of our pursuit of these pleasures and it is important to avoid mistakes of overindulgence in these pleasures that would only flip us over to the painful side.

Granting a bit of pleasure does not mean "giving YOURSELF away to others", or giving yourself away to debauchery. It means gifting what is reasonable to demonstrate that you care, and to benefit ourselves and others we must exercise effort, organization and control.

This formula of granting LOVE is the message of Christ. Feed the hungry. ... Clothe the poor ... hug the crying ... educate the innocent etc. These are the acts that benefit the victim. This is the way to pray for them.

When you pray with someone grant him or her a gift of Love. Make an offering to someone else. In a Catholic service, the church demonstrates this act of love by requesting that you look around to fellow churchgoers and offer serenity ("may peace be with you") and the Priest offers bread and wine. This representation of the body and the blood of Christ is a way to show that Jesus loved his disciples so much that in an act of Love, He willingly offered his own flesh and blood to feed mankind.

Communion is an act of love. Communion is meant to represent every one of the above described pleasures.

You do not need to be at church to make this offering. If by granting these pleasures as a favor to your loved one (s), even in small amounts on a daily basis, and if your partner gives them back in return, you will be in communion and your relationship with that person will last forever in happiness.

Therefore, the continuation of this book is about making prayer effective for the person who is praying. Not for others. Once he/she find that prayer has resulted in desired results then, and only then, the blessed person can proceed in the difficult path of educating others, even children, in how to pray to receive blessings. In the meantime, only acts of love can bring relief, if at least momentarily, to others.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Effective Prayer by Sergio M. Pineda. Copyright © 2018 Sergio M. Pineda. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 198220558X
• ISBN 13: 9781982205584
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 110