Prayer

This past month , my Bible reading plan has focused on the topic of prayer. I do not want to write a book on prayer here, becasue many great books have covered this topic. I just wish to express some of the things that stood out to me from all of Scripture on the action of prayer. I read from Moses on prayer, David on prayer, saw the examples of Hezekiah and Elijah on prayer, I worked through the teaching of Jesus on prayer and saw how even the book of Revelation has much to teach us on prayer. The very action and life of prayer is in the Bible from the very beginning to the very end.

The first thing that jumped out to me on prayer was the truth that prayer is not an action we do as God lovers, but a life we live. We have heard the analogy that prayer is like the hot line to the White House or prayer is like a life line in the middle of the storm. The problem with those analogies is that they make prayer seem like a one time action or something we can turn to when we need to find reliance on God. But just a beginning glance through the life of David shows that prayer, to him, was not an action but a life. To both the shepherd boy and the King, prayer to David was a life of continuous and purposeful communion with His lover and God. David loved God above all else, which is why he is called a "man after God's own heart". So David, being the lover of God, was always in communication with Him. That is truly what prayer is, a life of perpetual fellowship, love, and communion with God.

The second aspect of prayer that I found amazing this month is the truth that prayer is an act of faith and trust. When we view prayer as an activity we do when we need to turn to God for strength, wisdom, or help, we tend to view prayer as an activity that will strengthen, grow, or keep our faith and trust in God. Prayer is in the most basic sense an act of faith already. When we commune with God in prayer and communication, we are already showing faith and trust in Him. Yes, God will respond and do things to our faith when we pray. But prayer is the simplest and easiest action of faith and trust that we can do. We need not make prayer more complicated or mystical than it truly is.

And the final thought on prayer that I found this month, is that, prayer is really about God and not us. The sad state of our Christian life is, the truth that we think our Christian life, our salvation, and our sanctification is about us. When in reality the Bible is very clear, everything is about God and more importantly about His glory. We were saved for His glory. We grow for His glory. And we pray and communicate with Him for His glory. When we come to God in prayer, we are either coming to confess, praise, gratitude, or ask something of God. In every single one of those areas, God's glory is the bottom line. Even when we come to ask God for help or bring a request to Him, God will answer it the way he chooses for His glory. This means that our prayer life will always be for His glory, not our betterment. So when we approach prayer for the glory of God, our prayer lives will look, not like a hot line for help, but like a lover basking in the glory of the one they love. Prayer is and must always be about God.