Always Pray

I’m impressed by the focus that the Savior placed on prayer in the short time that He remained with the Nephites after originally suggested He needed to depart. He told them, “Go ye unto your homes, and ponder upon the things which I have said, and ask of the Father, in my name, that ye may understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow, and I come unto you again.” He wanted them to go home and ponder and pray over the things that they had been taught that day. But when He saw that they wanted Him to “tarry a little longer with them,” He stayed and blessed their sick and brought their little children to Him. After that, “He prayed unto the Father, and the things which he prayed cannot be written, and the multitude did bear record who heard him.” So powerful was His prayer to the Father that the people bore record in these words, “The eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father;… and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.” He then “took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them.” Surely that prayer for those children must have been a marvelous manifestation of His love, and the prayer was answered in a magnificent way as “they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them” (3 Nephi 17:3, 5, 15-17, 21, 24). Jesus showed them in an unforgettable way the power of prayer to the Father.

                In the next chapter the Savior spent much of His time focusing on prayer and encouraging them to diligently pray for themselves. He started with the sacrament which He prayed over and blessed. After speaking of the importance of this ordinance, He told the disciples, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always, lest ye be tempted by the devil, and ye be led away captive by him. And as I have prayed among you even so shall ye pray in my church, among my people who do repent and are baptized in my name.” After saying this to the twelve leaders, He turned to the people as a whole and said almost the same thing: “Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name.” He then gave them this powerful promise about prayer: “And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you.” He further instructed them, “Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.” In addition to praying for their families, they were to pray for all those who came to meet with them: “Suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not; But ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name.” He reminded them that He had just set the example for them: “Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed.” He further encouraged the twelve concerning those who were not worthy to partake of the sacrament: “Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out from among you, but ye shall minister unto him and shall pray for him unto the Father, in my name” (3 Nephi 18:15-24, 30). So, we are to pray for ourselves for protection against the adversary, pray for our families that they may be blessed, pray for our fellow Saints, and pray for those in sin, always following the example He gave of praying so powerfully to the Father that angels came down among the people. In short, to truly follow Him we must “always pray unto the Father in [His] name.”