When I talk to people or suffering, the key thing I say is be honest. I mean, God, once you're honesty, you hear people say, well, look at yourself compared to someone else saying the developing world who doesn't have anything to eat. And that's true. I mean, I think it's good to look at other people's situation so as they get some perspective, but by the same token, everyone's suffering is meaningful to themselves. And it's important to be honest with God.

Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. As we seek to live a life where we can be a light to others with a heart of prayer, to live their needs over our own.

It helps to remember the guidance given in the Bible from Philippians 2, 3, which says, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself.

It's in prayer and in selfless service that we can model the life Jesus lived by example, in loving others as much as we love ourselves.

In this episode, we explore how to begin to pursue a life of prayerfulness with basics on prayer from Father James Martin.

And also here from MSNBC News Anchor, Richard Liu, about how he learned what selflessness really means as he cares for his father who has Alzheimer's disease.

Father James Martin is a Jesuit priest, an editor at large at America Magazine, and the author of Learning to Pray, a guide for everyone.

Father Martin believes that prayer is for everyone, and encourages those who might not have prayed before, or perhaps are intimidated by the thought of it, or even think that they're not doing it right.

By reminding them that prayer is for everyone, and that God is lovingly waiting to hear from us and desires that interaction.

Father Martin explains what prayer is, how to start praying, and how a daily prayer practice can transform our lives.

My name is Father Jim Martin, I'm a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America Media, and author of a couple of different books, including most recently Learning to Pray, a guide for everyone.

I grew up outside of Philadelphia in a suburb called Plymouth Meeting.

I was raised Catholic, but wasn't super Catholic. My parents were good people, but I would say, and we didn't favor the kind of practices that a lot of developed Catholics and Christians do.

So we went to Mass. I'd say most Sundays. We said grace, maybe Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. I didn't go to Catholic High School.

I ended up going to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, where I studied finance. We used to joke, it's finance and not finance, because you can get more money if you say you studied finance.

It sounds a little more sophisticated. I took a job with General Electric in New York City, which is very exciting.

But then gradually I just sort of realized that it wasn't for me. Business is a real vocation for a lot of people, but I felt like the square peg in the round hole.

Then one night I came home and turned on the TV and saw a documentary about a trappist monk and writer called Thomas Merton.

That prompted me to read his book, The Seven Story Mountain, and that got me thinking about doing something else.

I entered the Jesuits, which is a Catholic religious order at age 27.

My image of God was the image of that a lot of Christians have. I'm not faulting them. This is how I felt that God was out there, and would dispense favors to me.

If I did the right thing, and so in the Jesuits I was invited to think about having a personal relationship with Jesus and a real open relationship with God.

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