My Thoughts on Prayer

I have started reading an amazing book on prayer, Philip Yancey's : Prayer, What Difference does it make? This book is full of tweets; so many lines worth quoting and thinking about. I have always enjoyed prayer. However, when I was younger, I think there was a lot of self-righteousness in my prayers. I would talk about how much I loved to pray, and that everyone else should pray too. I probably made a lot of people feel uncomfortable. And, when I look back, my heart was saying, "why don't you pray as much as I do, I am more holy." But, because of God's mercy and grace, I have learned that we should never judge another person's prayer life because that is judging an intimate relationship that we have no idea about. I write to encourage you that prayer is not a transaction. Prayer is how we each have an intimate relationship with God.

Why do you pray? Do you pray because you want to see things happen? Do you pray out of desperation? Do you pray because you have to in order to be a good Christian? When we look at Jesus' life, we see the perfect example of what prayer should be in our lives. In almost every story about Jesus in the Bible, he retreats in prayer. He finds strength to undergo the crucifixion in prayer. And, while he prays for several hours, his disciples fall asleep. Jesus is the perfect example of what our prayer life should look like. Yet, we are completely human, and therefore we struggle with attention in prayer, with motivation in prayer, with giving time to prayer.

If you find yourself like I did feeling like "people just don't pray enough, people don't come to our prayer meetings, or people do not pray like I do." Please be more gracious. Please invite Jesus in your heart to heal you from that attitude. Everyone has a unique relationship with God. He is developing those relationships in his time and in his purpose. Just because someone isn't showing up to your prayer meeting, or using the same language you would use to speak with God, or even interprets the Bible in a different way than you do does not mean they care less about God or have less of a relationship with him. I recommend that we spend more time with God asking him on how to encourage prayer as a relationship rather than a transaction.