#2 - How Does God Explain the Purpose and Benefits of Prayer?

In this episode of In Good Faith, Taimur and I discuss the single most important action in the life of a believer: prayer (salat).

After some initial reflections on the importance of meaningful communication through our prayer - and exploring some analogies to illustrate how it should fit coherently into our overall lives - we referred to a number of verses from revelation to see how God Himself explains this central topic.

(0:00) - Prayer as connection 
(3:36) - The importance of meaningful communication with God 
(11:38) - Prayer in public and useful analogies for prayer 
(15:29) - Prayer as conscious engagement with scripture 
(17:35) - The restorative effect of prayer, plus another analogy
(26:29) - The behavioural effect of prayer 
(28:57) - Prayer as an ancient prophetic practice 
(33:07) - Prayer as a cornerstone of social action and public advocacy 
(39:23) - Overcoming our split-brain approach to life  
(43:00) - The connection between prayer, remembrance, contentment and paradise 
(46:49) - How not to pray and taking prayer seriously