Posted on July 6, 2017.
Prayer a foundational principle of Christianity. Prayer is something we all know we should do at least once a day if we are good; two or three times a day. Prayer is an action in which we ask God to fix our problems or to solve some sort of world injustice.
Why do you pray? Does prayer change things? How and why were you taught to pray?
For the record, none of these perceptions of prayer are wrong. I want to share about prayer not to correct one’s thinking or to even point the finger. I want to write about prayer as a means to get us to think about its importance. Being a part of a missionary organization, we talk about prayer a lot. I personally believe that prayer can change things, more than most. However, I’m also a very dedicated and dutiful person; this means that I can lose sight of why we pray. We want to see God move. We want to see people change, to become more like Christ. However, have we ever stopped to think that we focus too much on the subject of prayer, on the “food” and not the hand that feeds us.
I have recently been thinking about how much Jesus just wants us to be with him right where he is. Well if that’s the case then my prayer times going to start to look different. If Jesus wants me to be with him where he is shouldn’t I be asking him where he is? Simply instead of going to God with some sort of checklist or agenda, I’m starting to move more toward asking God one simple question “God, what’s on your mind?”. John 17 is the longest recorded prayer that Jesus spoke, at the core of that prayer it was time spent with him, it was us going into the world revealing the union that Jesus, the Father and we all have together.
Prayer is a broad subject and has many facets. In the midst of this busy world, we can approach prayer as not about something we can get from God. But about how we can grow with God in relationship and intimacy. Prayer can be a lot of things but I think at the beginning and the end of it all prayer is about being with Jesus where he is.
We can approach this subject in hurt, thankfulness, exaltation or need. Would we not forget that it’s not our zeal that makes prayer effective. Not our well-spoken words our mission, or our objective what makes prayer effective is the fact that Jesus sees us. He’s excited to be with us and us with him, that is what makes prayer effective and worth it. Our position and partnership with God, as sons and daughters as a family.
By Joshua Austin