Meaningful prayer

I have been pondering Elder David Bednar's talk from conference since Sunday. He talked about meaningful prayer. He emphasized the word meaningful. He talked about how we pray for the poor and the sick, for example, but that we also need to act and do what we can to help them ourselves. He said prayer becomes meaningful as we ask in faith and act.




To quote a few lines from his talk:


"The object of our prayers should not be a wish list or a series of requests, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is eager to bestow according to His will and timing.

"Every sincere prayer is heard and answered by our Heavenly Father. But the answers we receive may not be what we expect or come to us when we want or in the way we anticipate.......

"We can move beyond routine checklist of prayers and move on to meaningful prayer as we appropriately ask in faith and act. As we patiently persevere through the trial of our faith and as we humbly acknowledge and accept not my will, but thine be done."




Looking back over my life, there were many prayers that were not answered in the way I wanted or expected. Many blessings in my life I did not ask for. Sometimes I asked for different blessings. Sometimes I asked for things but did not receive them til many years later. Having said all that, I can also say that I am thankful God is ultimately the one in charge. What he had planned for me is so much better than what I could have imagined or asked for, in spite of the pain and growing through the years. There were times I would have preferred a much easier ride.