Lately I have been trying to reconcile various aspects of my faith. I have been following two different daily readings and prayers. I have found that one focuses more on the personal and the other on the community of Christians. We had a prayer 24+ in our church. We had 30 hours of continuous prayer. That provided a nice impetus for me to start praying daily. I have come to realise the benefits of prayer. It calms me. The more I pray the more I realise that I end up praying for others more than I do for myself.

I have come to realise that it is better to be a good Christian than a good follower of a denomination. To become a Christian you have to believe that you have sinned and Christ died to save you from your sins. You also should be baptised at some point in your life based on your conviction. Everything else is doctrinal or theological beliefs.

In this world there are only four people that I would ask to pray. I believe that they pray in sincerity. They pray faithfully. They have the gift of prayer. I believe that through their prayers God will do what is best for me even if it means that my prayers are not answered in the way that I hoped. They are special people. I have learnt a lot from their life. Each one of them have a different method and style of praying.

I have found myself asking them to pray for me. The more I contemplated and the more I prayed the more I found that I felt comfortable in praying Novenas. The basis of my faith is rock solid. Anything above that is doctrinal and theological. To me there is no difference in asking a friend of mine to pray for me and going to him and giving him a gift and saying a Novena and then going to a church dedicated to that saint and giving an offertory. The only sign of life is change. I like examining my beliefs from time to time. It is only then that I can know where I stand in my faith.