Pray Like a Warrior

Sorry I couldn't blog last night. Our internet was out. In fact, it's still out. I'm blogging from school right now.

Recently, my mother shared a blog post someone had written about different styles of prayers. The blog post related that farmers often pray for God to help them with forces beyond their control, like the weather and the growth of their crops. On the other hand, warriors tend to pray for help with things they can control. They pray for the motivation, courage, and wisdom to train hard and fight well.

The blogger suggested that, as all of us are engaged in a spiritual war, we would do well to learn from the warrior's prayer. It's true that there are many forces beyond our control that we could certainly use God's help with, but it may be more important for us to gain the wisdom we need to work with the forces within our control. God can't fight our battles for us, and He can't take them away from us. We have to win our battles on our own power, but we can ask for God to help us increase and direct that power.

I believe that God most frequently helps those who are willing to do their own part. It's easy to pray for God to take control and make life easier for us; it's harder to pray for, and then exercise, the strength to face the challenges and difficulties of life. But that's what we have to do. It's what we came here to do. One of the purposes of mortality is to face challenges and learn how to overcome them. So rather than praying for God to influence His control to make life better for us (which we can still do, by the way), it may be more beneficial for us to pray for the strength to take control for ourselves and for the wisdom to use that strength well. We are all warriors here. Perhaps we'd do well to learn to pray like them.