Praying to the Trinity

I have to thank Dr. Wayne Grudem and his Systematic Theology for being the inspiration behind this post, I always enjoy dipping in to the wisdom contained between the covers of that scholarly work.

I start off with the statement that we pray to God not that He know what our needs are (He knows them better than we do, both our real needs and our desires which we often pray up to Him as our needs). We pray to Him to express our trust, to increase our trust, to have love for Him and fellowship with Him, to be part of the eternally important work of His kingdom.

I will not get into the effectiveness of prayer other than to say I am convinced of it. We pray, the Spirit often intercedes, God certainly hears and responds to our prayers. Often not as we had hoped, but He responds. Another topic for another day.

I wanted to focus on the following. Who are we to pray to? Obviously God. But to God as one essence or to the persons of the Trinity?

We are often taught to pray in the name of Jesus. Does this mean we are to pray only to Jesus. I do not believe so, but we are to pray under His authority. As our Mediator, our prayers can come before the Father and be heard with the authority of His Son. Makes for pretty powerful praying.

So then are we to pray only to the Father?

I do not believe so. Jesus in Hebrews 2:17 is a "merciful and faithful high priest" and as He is God it would seem appropriate to pray to Him. The Holy Spirit is clearly involved in our praying as noted in Romans 8:26-27, praying as we often do not know to pray as we should. As sin can grieve the Spirit as noted in Ephesians 4:30 it would seem that prayer would bring glory and joy to the Spirit.

You can take an approach of praying to the Father in the name of the Son with the intercession of the Spirit. But I believe you can search your heart and pray at times to Jesus or the Spirit for They are God as is the Father.

How do you approach the Trinity in prayer?

How Do You Come Before The Throne?

We covered the practice of hesychastic prayer, from hesychasm, an Eastern Orthodox method of contemplation developed by Gregory of Palamas in class recently. The prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” is repeated over and over in a rhythm of breathing and meditation in order to arrive at communion with God.

⁶"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
Matthew 6:6 (NASB)

This is the basis for the practice, a drawing into self for deep reflective, contemplative prayer. But I must admit, that what confuses is the following:

⁷"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.
Matthew 6:7 (NASB)

The warning against meaningless repetition makes me wary of the repetitive nature of hesychastic prayer.

Bottom line, I do not know enough about either the practice or the hearts of those who practice it to be in a position opine about whether doing it is being obedient to the commands of our Lord.

But it does raise some questions that I think we can address:

• How do you approach deity in prayer?

• What does prayer mean to you?

• Do you have a formula that you feel works well and is approrpriately respectful of what is transpiring when you pray?

I be interested to hear what you have to say.