absolute uncertainty

There are only three sorts of people: those who have found God and serve him; those who are busy seeking him and have not found him; those who live without either seeking or finding him. The first are reasonable and happy, the last are foolish and unhappy, those in the middle are unhappy and reasonable.

-Blaise Pascal

(My personal reflection brought me to the mystery of prayer and the life of prayer. This is perhaps the first time I will be talking about God, I would just like to make it clear that I have no intention of preaching or even contradicting others, as I respect people of different faith or beliefs. If you have queries or other interesting ideas, feel free to ask or tell me.)

Prayer, as I see it, is simply a dialogue with God. It may sound really easy, but it's not. Back in elementary and even high school, prayers were verbally recited as far as one's memory could go, they were words which one had to memorize (out of force if i may say), these words sounded really holy and they were to be said seriously, they were words i really didn't understand, i just recited them for me to show how obedient I was to the teachers, whom I thought never committed any sin and were too clean to teach us how to pray. I never really knew the true value of prayer. Come university life, I joined a religious community and became inactive for two years, went back and served as its head. I would say that my spiritual life grew in the university parish, it was when I prayed with my eyes closed, talking to God. I didn't really care if he was listening or not, I just talked to him and tried listening to him sometimes. Just last year, that's two years after my stay in the university, I was rationalizing if I really needed to pray, I kept on asking to whom am I praying to? If he is really there, does he answer my prayers or is it just me deciding if I'll work and get what I'm praying and what I prayed for? It's not easy to believe someone I do not see or even feel the presence of. It's not easy to pray if the mind is full of uncertainty. I was simply claiming that I could live without praying, and yes, I tried it myself, I tried not to pray or even rejected prayer as something senseless or even useless. I could sleep peacefully without praying, I did that for about three months, and during those times, it wasn't really peaceful and I wasn't really happy with what I was doing. I tried praying again, and I have to say it's different now, it's more of the will that's working, not mere emotions. Doubt, that's perhaps what the rational mind does, but faith, something above reason itself, tells me that He exists and that He is always listening. I'm beginning to accept that a life of prayer is a life of struggle. it's when the heart begins to say something the mind knows nothing of.