The Power Of Prayer

The power of prayer is amazing. I pray many times a day, when I wake up, before I eat, before I go to bed and I will admit very few times when I pray I think about what I’m really doing. Sometimes we all can be like that. Very few times do I really dwell on what I am actually doing, and what I am doing is talking to God. Sometimes prayer can seem like a chore, a mandatory action; we do it when we wake up, before we eat. Sometimes we may skip it altogether. But what if when we pray we think about the actions behind the simple action. We are actually talking to God! In Biblical times the Jews needed a priest to act as a go between for them, they couldn’t talk to God, only a holy man could. But at the time of Jesus’s death the curtain separating God from man ripped in half symbolizing the new covenant. We don’t need a mediator; we can go up to our creator any time we want. Just as ordinary communication can be used in many ways so can prayer, and one part of prayer that is usually abused is to ask God for something. Jesus said “ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” Matthew 7:7. I am a firm believer that God answers prayers, but I also believe that He only answers them on His own time. Prayer is not a magic spell to get what you want when you want it. It is a communication with God, and through that communication we may ask for something, but just like a parent telling a child that they can’t have too many sweets, God will only work for our best interest. God is like a parent, He works for our best interest, not our pleasure. There are many other parts of prayer and if I wanted to write about them all then it could fill a book, one more thing I will say is to read the book of Psalms, it is a collection of open thoughts and prayers and a good place to look at a picture of a true relationship with God. Just as relationships with people build up when we spend time with them the same goes for God. Next time you pray remember this: you’re talking to Him, and He’s listening.