Instead of seeking human help in difficult situations ask first for divine help.  If done with faith and humility, you will experience an interior transformation. The spiritual life must be founded on prayer.  Go to Christ in prayer. Listen to Him who is the Truth.  He is the infallible Truth. Ask God’s grace in order to grow in Christlikeness. To progress in your love for God necessitates and active life of prayer because  a life of prayer predisposes our soul to receive grace which leads, guides our faith, hope and trust in our God.

After seeking His forgiveness for your failures, then recall all the gifts He has given you and thank Him. Do ask Him for more of His grace with confidence that He will grant this petition and say to Him: “Lord, you know me; let me know You more and more”.  The best kind of prayer is that one which transforms your desire into His desire, His will instead of yours. In order to do that,  humbly ask God to vacuum out your brain of all the irrelevant stuff that hinders you so that you can identify your actions and behavior in the light of God’s will.

It is in the heart that prayer resides. Prayer occurs when the will connects itself to God in complete trust, obeying His will in order to please Him. In prayer we express the trust, affection and love in our hearts.  Seek God with you heart, and you will find Him. Great intensity of love can be conveyed by a single desire of the heart and make this desire become a prayer.  Only when you are in an attitude of resting in God will you begin to understand your real self and know what you need to change in order to grow spiritually. Then, you will want to pray, to let yourself be healed by the transforming power of God’s love.

God has provided you with a magnificent, flawless, guidance system: the Holy Spirit, who leads us gently in the right direction and recalibrates us when we go off in the wrong direction. Simply tell God what concerns you, asking Him for His guidance.  Talk with Him for He is  the greatest friend you could ever have. He listens to you with great interest and attention because He really cares for you. It is the Holy Spirit’s action in the heart that enables the soul to rise above itself. Respond faithfully to the pull of grace and you will pray well. When you turn to God in prayer He will invite you to come close to Him. With  His grace you will learn to love God more because the flame of God’s love enkindles in the human heart a longing that only God Himself can fulfill. Open wide your heart, and God will fill it with His love.

Do not make prayer a self-centered monologue talking to yourself instead of to God.  Tell Him about your concerns, activities, preoccupations, fears – and then listen to Him who speaks to you in the silence of your heart. Remember, He who IS, sees you, hears you, loves you. Contemplating Christ  sanctifies us as we gaze on Him with faith and love. He is our model, hope, strength, and  joy. Gaze on Him keeping the eyes of your heart on Him in order to imitate His virtues.

Don’t beat your brains out trying to figure God out by deduction using your mind or with the ideas you garner from others. The intellect can aid the soul seeking God, but the will’s role is more essential. God is not an object that we can get to know by analysis. Faith in God involves a personal encounter. It is in living with and for Him that we can encounter God as a person.What sets the will in motion is love/commitment. Surrender your heart to God, and He will reveal Himself to you. God is Truth, and Truth bears witness to itself. Our love for God flowers in prayer, giving meaning to the aspirations of our heart. Often, it is the heart rather than the lips that speak to God directly from the inner recesses of the soul  as the  heart surges towards Him.

What do you say to Christ when He knocks on the door of your heart?  You have to open the door to let Him in because He never forces Himself on anyone. God is always inviting us to come and visit Him; to speak to Him, to tell Him our needs, cares, woes and joys. Encounter Him personally in prayer and you will know there is no other friend like Him, no one like Him to whom you can open up your heart.