An Inroduction to Prayer Kathryn Kuhlman

I want to share with you a letter that I received from Northridge, California. Dear Miss Kuhlman, for the first time last night, I accidentally turned on your program and I was so emotionally glued to every word you said that I have just thought and thought about it all day. I had heard of you several years ago, a friend. had purchased your book, I Believe in Miracles. Since that time, I had forgotten your name. But last night, it was quite an experience for me to listen to your program. I was so deeply touched by the lady who went through such turmoil with her little son who had the club foot. In fact, as I just stated, I thought about it all day long. It seems I've had just one thing after another in my own life, illness and then financial troubles. I feel I must tell you first of all that I am a Catholic. I not only go to church every Sunday, I go to Mass every day. Yes, I'm a firm believer in prayer, but I have prayed so long. I have prayed so hard for many things that seem to never come true. And I so often wonder if God hears me. I'm writing to you, Miss Kuhlman, to explain to me just what you meant Sunday night by praying to God. She realized that she had been praying wrong. This is the part... I didn't understand. She went on to say that the day her son walked, she was talking to God and didn't realize that her son had walked across the floor. Now I'm wondering if I am praying wrong. Would you please, Miss Kuhlman, just take a moment and tell me how to pray. Thank you so much for a most inspirational hour. I look forward to it sincerely. And the woman signs her full name, gives her full address. Perhaps the other day you were listening to one of our radio broadcasts and you will remember a man and his wife were talking. Oh, his wife had received this wonderful healing. And it was, it was a real miracle. The gentleman himself was telling of a healing that he had received, a physical healing. And then he turned, and I shall never forget his face. His eyes brimming with tears when he said, but the... greatest thing of it all was the fact that you taught me how to pray. I shall never forget that man's words as long as I live. Never. I shall never forget the look on his face. I shall never forget. But in that moment, what he was saying affected me. But the greatest thing of all, you taught me how to pray. Consider something. Prayer is the greatest power that God has given to you, that God has given to me. There is no greater power that God has given to human beings than the power of prayer. But there can be no real praying, and you cannot know how to pray until, first of all, you realize that wonderful relationship that you have with God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Oh, prayer is much more than saying prayers. You'd be amazed how many people would write to me and say, would you please send me that prayer that you prayed? You'd be amazed. And in a very simple way, I'm just sitting here talking to you and I close my eyes and how often I even pray with my eyes open. It's something that comes from away deep on the inside of me. Nothing has been written out. Nothing has been memorized. It's not saying prayers. It's not giving audible expression to something that I have memorized. That's not praying. Saying something you have memorized or saying something that someone else has written is not... really praying. These things can help you to become God conscious. They can create an attitude. But they're not really praying. Pause just a minute. I'm going to make this just as simple as I possibly can. You must realize that there is is a relationship that you have with God. One thing that all human beings have in common when it comes to God, and that is the fact that He is our Creator. But not everyone has that gross relationship with Him as a Heavenly Father. This relationship must begin in accepting Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, as your personal Savior. Not everyone can come into His presence and say, Father, my Heavenly Father, because He does not become one's Heavenly Father. There cannot be that relationship. Accept there be that spiritual experience first of being born again. Accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior, we call that experience that new birth experience. And when you have that spiritual experience, in accepting Jesus Christ and what Jesus did for you on the cross, It's all bought and paid for. All on earth that you have to do is by faith reach out and accept it. It's yours. This very moment, all that you have to do is just look up and say, Wonderful Jesus, I accept for myself that which you did for me on the cross. Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. But perhaps there has never been that personal transaction. You have never personally reached out and accepted what Jesus did for you personally. And then when that transaction takes place, God the Creator becomes your heavenly friend. Father. Then you can say, Father. And that's the very first thing that Jesus taught when he taught us how to pray. In the sixth chapter of Matthew, we call it the Lord's Prayer, but it isn't really the Lord's Prayer. It is the prayer that Jesus taught. you and taught me to pray. And this is what he said. After this manner, therefore, pray ye. And then he begins, Our Father, which art in heaven. That relationship. When we pray, it's so easy to pray. If you find it hard to pray, it's because you have never really recognized this wonderful relationship. Do you say that it's the most difficult thing in the world for you to come into the presence of your earthly parent and converse with him? Maybe this thing is so real to me because of my relationship with Papa. If you know me very well, you know that of all human beings that I have known and that have entered into my life, my relationship with Papa was the greatest. Oh, I would hang on him. I would love him. Mama would say to me, stop it. Hanging on top. Dear me, he was carrying me when my legs were so long that they would drag on this pavement. And he was still carrying me, you know. It just kind of like that. He would no sooner than hang up his coat when he'd get home. Before he would even have a chance to wash his hands and comb his hair. I was still hanging on him. He'd sit. down, oh poor Papa. He would sit down to rest a minute and I was all over him, my arms around his neck, yacking, chatting, never shutting my mouth. My words were coming so fast and Mama would say, can't you just be quiet, Papa's tired. Just sit down and be quiet. Well, there was so much to talk about, so much had happened. I had to tell Papa everything. Papa had to know. I knew that Papa wanted to know. There wasn't a thing that happened that day, but what I was telling Papa was coming rolling out of my mouth. There never was a person that was easier for me to converse with than it was Papa. It was so natural. When something would happen, just instinctively, I would think, I must tell Papa. To this day, yet, there are things, and Papa's been gone a long time, that I wish I could run and tell Papa. That's why this relationship with our Heavenly Father is just as real and just as personal. Why I never memorized anything to tell Papa. It came so spontaneous. It was... And that's the way it is with our Heavenly Father, our Father which art in Heaven. And then you'll remember the experience that Jesus had, the same wonderful experience when He prayed. And as you well know, His prayer, the real Lord's prayer, is in the 17th chapter of John. These words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father. He's talking to the heavenly father too. And he begins with, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee. There must be the knowledge of that relationship between yourself and your Heavenly Father. And when you talk to Him, you must be conscious of His power. He's all -powerful. Not only that, He's concerned about every detail in that life of yours. I wish somehow I had the vocabulary. I wish I had the... in this little heart -to -heart talk to get you to understand once and for all that he is interested in you as an individual. Your needs, your troubles, your heartbreak. When those tears roll down your cheeks, he sees those falling tears. And he's interested. He's concerned. I want you to know that. In the midnight hour when you feel there isn't a soul who cares, the rest of the family are asleep. And you feel so all alone. You can hear the breathing of the one next to you. Or you can hear the restlessness of the child in the next room. And yet you are the only one who may be awake. He's there, closer to you than the next beat of your heart. You may be a mother and you have a son in service away out there, thousands of miles away. And in your home and in that midnight hour, you're praying that prayer for his protection. He'll not only hear that prayer that you're praying. But he's concerned about that boy of yours, that son of yours. He'll put that wall of fire around about that son. He'll give his angels charge over that boy of yours. He'll not mock the desire of your heart. He'll not turn a deafened ear to the cry of your heart. I promise you. He loves you. He's concerned about you and your need. That man who's so steeped in sin. You've tried everything under God's heaven. And you want deliverance. There's a heavenly father who's concerned in all that he wants you to do. He's waiting for you to come into his presence. And through... Jesus Christ, his only begotten son. Pray that prayer of confession and he'll set you free if you really want to be set free and you really want deliverance. When we come before the Father's throne, we have a great mediator. We have a great high priest, Jesus Christ. And we come before the Father's throne in the name of Jesus. Before Jesus went back to heaven, that's one thing he made very clear, that he was leaving us his name to use. How often? Someone gave me a card and said, Now, Miss Kuman, when you get to such and such a place, and I shall never forget, a precious Chinese lady, when I went to Hong Kong the last time, gave me the card of her brother, a very prominent businessman in Hong Kong, and said, You know, Catherine Kuman, All on earth that you have to do is to take this card and present it to my brother, and he'll do anything in the world for you. And that's all that I had to do. Jesus left us his name to use. All that we have to do is to present his name before the throne of God. And we have a hearing. And God sees you and he sees me perfect and righteous and holy. And he hears our prayer when we come in the name of Jesus. Any man, any woman who will come for the throne of God in the presence of Almighty God, through the person of God's only begotten Son, through the person of Jesus, will have a hearing. Father, in Jesus' name. And then there's the mighty Holy Spirit, the mighty power of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit who is here on this earth. And in that moment, when we come in the name of Jesus before the throne of God, God hears us, and then he gives the nod, and the Holy Spirit will answer that prayer. It's that simple. It's that easy. taught you the simplicity of coming before the throne in the name of Jesus and teaching you how to pray.