The scripture says, “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass,” (Alma 37:6).  What could be simpler than prayer?

Prayer is the simplest thing in the world, yet carries the most power.  That is the great secret that most people have yet to learn.

One of our hymns says, “Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try.”  (LDS Hymnbook, pg. 145).  A baby learning to talk can pray.  The child’s prayer is heard and answered, yet there are grown men in high places who have never learned to pray.

The promise in the scriptures is, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”  (Matt. 7:7-8).  I don’t suppose that there is any promise repeated more times in the scriptures than that, and yet there are grown-up people who don’t pray.

“Stiffnecked” is a word often used in the scriptures.  A stiffnecked person is one whose head doesn’t bow in prayer.  A stiffnecked person is one who either doesn’t bother to pray, who refuses to pray, or who has never learned how to pray.  Either he is ignorant, having never been taught; or he is proud, and thinks that he’s above such simple and childish things.  I can only feel pity for such narrow-minded individuals.  They never learn the grand secrets of life.

Such ignorance is the most pervasive illness in the world.  More people are afflicted with this disease than with all other diseases combined.  There are many, many people who go to church, and yet know not how to pray.

Late in their lives, my mother-in-law and father-in-law became very close friends with a couple of another faith who faithfully attended their own church every Sunday.  My father-in-law was shocked when one day the woman came to him privately and said, “Dave, would you teach me how to pray?”

Dave told her that prayer is the simplest thing in the world, but that you first have to understand who you’re praying to.  You’re praying to your Father in heaven, who is a real Person.  He has a body of flesh and bones, just like you and I.  We look just like Him.  He is actually our Father.  We had our birth as spirits in His heavenly home.  We received our first training in His home.  We knew Him, and He knows us.  He sent us here to earth to continue our training, and to receive bodies like His.

Knowing that, you begin your prayer by addressing Him:  “Our Father in heaven.”  That’s the first step.

The second is to thank Him for our blessings.

The third step is to ask Him for the help you need.

The fourth, and last step, is to state that “I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

It’s that simple.  We close in the name of Jesus Christ because it was through our Father’s Son, Jesus Christ, that we were created, through whom all our blessings come, and in whose name we must do whatever we do.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”  Is anything more repeated than that?  Do you suppose the Lord means it?

Dave’s friend died shortly thereafter.  She went out of the world knowing how to pray, and is most certainly using her new-found skill now; but she lived a lifetime of missed opportunities.

For example:

One

One Friday morning my son, Eli, asked, “Where is Paul Hoelscher’s book?”  Paul taught an art class that Eli attended every Friday afternoon.  He’d borrowed a wildlife book from Paul two weeks before, and wanted it for that afternoon’s class.  I remembered standing Eli’s current picture-in-progress on his easel.  I stood the book on the easel with the picture.  Then Thanksgiving happened, with lots of nieces and nephews who circulated through Eli’s room.  The book was nowhere to be found.  After he’d gone to school, I began a systematic search of the house.  I looked under every bed, in every bookcase, and in every unlikely place.  I went through every room.  The book was lost.  I quit looking, but it haunted me.  Class time was approaching, so I decided to look again.  As I walked through the living room to Eli’s bedroom, I thought, “This one is going to require prayer.”  So I knelt by Eli’s bed and said in effect, “We’ve lost Paul’s book, and don’t know where to find it.  You know where it is.  Please direct me to it.”  I got up and walked around the end of his bed to his chest of drawers.  Standing on his chest of drawers was a picture of Christ which leaned against the bookcase.  I took hold of the picture of Christ, pulled the top toward me, and there was the missing book standing behind the picture!  It happened just that fast.  I went back to the bed, knelt again, and found myself having to choke back several sobs as I thanked Heavenly Father for such a direct answer to prayer.

Two

My 11-year-old grandson told about his own experience with prayer.  He wrote:

This summer we went to visit my great grandma.  It was hot inside, so we all decided to go sit outside in the shade.  After awhile, one of my cousins decided to go inside and noticed that the door was locked.  We were all locked outside and my great grandma began to get very worried because she didn’t have a key out there or anything.  My uncle got busy trying to pick a lock and my dad began searching for an open window and when he couldn’t find one he began trying to open closed windows.  My uncle and dad tried and tried to get in and nothing was working—it was like trying to break into a fortress.  It was Sunday, so there were no locksmiths to call.  My great grandma was very worried.

Then I remembered to say a prayer.  I said a prayer in my mind that we would be able to get into the house.  Soon after I prayed, I had a feeling that I should try a window that led into the bathroom.  I climbed a ladder and tried it and it wouldn’t open, but I could see how it might open with a screwdriver.  I ran to my grandpa’s shop and got one and when I tried it the window opened.

Heavenly Father knew how we could get into the house and when I asked for help, the Holy Ghost helped me know what to do.  I am so thankful to have the gift of the Holy Ghost.  (Caden Gee, October 2010).

Three

President Gordon B. Hinckley told the following story in general conference in October 2006:

When the Manti Utah Temple was under construction some 120 years ago, George Paxman worked as a finish carpenter.  He and his young wife, Martha, had one child and were expecting another.

While hanging one of the heavy east doors of the temple, George suffered a strangulated hernia.  He was in terrible pain.  Martha laid him in a wagon and took him to the town of Nephi, where she put him on the train and took him to Provo.  There he died.  Spurning marriage, she remained a widow for 62 years, supporting herself with needlework.

Now permit me to diverge from this narrative to say that when I was engaged to marry my wife, I gave her a ring.  When we were married, I gave her a wedding band.  She wore them for years.  Then one day I noticed that she had taken them off and was wearing this little gold wedding band.  It had belonged to her grandmother.  The ring had been given her by her husband, George.  The ring was the only thing he left in this life.  One day in the spring, Martha was housecleaning.  She brought all of the furnishings out to give the house a thorough cleaning.  Upon shaking the straw from the mattress, she looked down, and the ring was gone.  She looked everywhere most carefully.  It was the only physical remembrance of her beloved husband.  She raked through the straw with her fingers but could not find the ring.  Tears fell from her eyes.  She went to her knees and prayed that the lord would help her to find the ring.  When she opened her eyes, she looked down and there it was.

Now I hold it in my hand.  It is too small for all of you to see.  It is 18 karat gold, old and scarred and bent.  But it represents faith, the faith of a widow who pleaded with the Lord in her extremity.

Four

The previous story should be paired up with one from our own family.  Marjorie’s mother lost her ring, too.  She searched the house for weeks trying to find her precious ring.  Her daughter, Mary, came to visit with the express purpose in mind of finding the ring.  She searched, too.  When her efforts proved fruitless, she prayed.  She picked up a large book, and opened it.  It fell open to the page where her mother had placed her ring before closing the book.

Five

Anna Matilda Anderson was a young girl who lived in Sweden in the 1880s.  When she and her family joined the Church, they were ridiculed for their beliefs.  Anna’s mother decided they should move to America and join the Saints in Utah.  Anna was 11 years old when she and her sister, Ida, were sent ahead to earn money and bring the rest of the family.  They sailed to the United States, then traveled by train to Ogden, Utah, where Ida left by covered wagon to work for her sponsors in Idaho.  Anna was completely alone on that train as it continued to Salt Lake City.  She spoke no English and knew no one.  Can you imagine the loneliness and terror of her ride?

The train pulled into the darkened Rio Grande station just before midnight.  The relative who was to meet Anna was not there.  Anna stood watching with dread as the station slowly emptied.  Finally, she was alone with a German family who also had no one to meet them.  The darkness was thick and threatening, closing in around her.  She later recalled:  “I started to cry and thought about the last thing my mother told me:  ‘If you come to a place where you can’t understand what the people are saying, don’t forget to pray to your Father in Heaven because He can understand you.’  Anna knelt by her suitcase and pleaded with all her might for heavenly help.  Haven’t we all said prayers like that?

The German family motioned for Anna to follow them.  Having no other choice, she walked behind them, crying.  Arriving at Temple Square, they heard rapid footsteps.  A woman was hurrying toward them, studying each person she passed.  She looked at the German family, then pressed on.  Anna caught the woman’s searching gaze.  The woman stopped, unbelieving.  She recognized the young girl!  And with a shock, Anna recognized the woman.  She was her Sunday School teacher who had left Sweden a year earlier!  Pulling Anna tightly into her arms, the teacher wiped away her frightened tears.  She told Anna:  ‘I was awakened over and over again…Images of the arriving immigrants raced through my mind.  I could not go back to sleep.  I was prompted to come to the temple to see if there was anyone I knew here.  (Journal of Anna Matilda Anderson, in possession of Bonnie D. Parkin).

“So you see,” Anna remembered, “my Heavenly Father more than answered my prayers.  I only asked for someone who could understand me, and He sent someone I knew.”

Years later, Anna explained how she took that amazing journey alone:  Her faith in the Lord assured her that something better was waiting just ahead.  This gave her the courage to cross an ocean without her mother, pray to her Father in Heaven when she was lost, and walk toward the safe haven of the temple.  Anna moved through the unknown and left a path for others to follow.  One of those who followed Anna’s faith-filled footsteps was my husband.  You see, Anna was his grandmother. (As told by Bonnie D. Parkin in general Young Women meeting 29 March 1997).

Every major event of the Restoration was preceded by prayer.  Think about it.  You’ll see that it was so.

The United States exists because of prayer.  Think about it.  Study about it.  You’ll see that it is so.  The patriots should not have won their Revolutionary War against the greatest military power in the world.

The American continent was discovered because of prayer.  Christopher Columbus said, “Our Lord unlocked my mind, sent me upon the sea, and gave me fire for the deed.  Those who heard my emprise called it foolish, mocked me, and laughed.  But who can doubt but that the Holy Ghost inspired me?”

During the voyage, after weeks of sailing, with no sight of land, mutiny raised its head.  Finally, Columbus promised the captains of the Pinta and the Nina, both of whom wanted to turn back, that if no land was sighted in forty-eight hours, they would turn back.  Then he went to his cabin and, in his words, ‘prayed mightily to the Lord.’  On October 12, the very next day, they sighted land.  (N. Eldon Tanner in General Conference, April 1976).

The leaders of this nation have traditionally been praying men.  George Washington left a mighty blessing upon this land in the form of an eloquent prayer.

Abraham Lincoln noted insightfully that, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power….But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

That, I think, is the major problem of the nation.  It is the major problem of most people.  I have prayers answered every day.  I could tell dozens of stories about personal prayers that have been dramatically answered.  I testify that prayer works.  I testify that God lives, and that He answers prayers.  He wants us to pray.  In the scriptures He pleads for His children to talk to Him.  Many are so blind and so deaf and so unwilling that they go through life never accessing this greatest of all powers.  Miracles would happen in their lives if they would humble themselves and pray.  Through prayer you may know what you need to know instantly.  It’s a promise given by the Lord Himself.

The Book of Mormon closes with a promise written by an ancient prophet.  He wrote:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father in the same of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.  (Moroni 10:4-5).

I testify that it works.  I tried it, and I was plainly told that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, along with the Bible.  Many people refuse to look at the Book of Mormon because they’re too smart to be fooled by such a childish thing.  Many people neglect to pray for the same reason.

What a pity.