Prayer is more trusting than trying, more belonging than begging. Prayer is more about our trust in God than it is our trying harder to say it just right, or do it just right, or get it just right. It's more about trusting, coming to God in trust, and it's more about our belonging, our...our relationship with our Father. It's more about belonging than it is about begging.
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We get to pray to the creator of the universe, to the Lord of heaven, to the Savior of our souls. He invites us to come into his presence. He says, come, cast your cares on me. He says, come, draw near to me. We get to pray. It's an amazing privilege.
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We pray because we get to pray. And I'm pretty sure I can say for all of us, we pray because we need to pray. We live in a harsh world. Life throws things at us that are beyond our control. There are things going on in my life and in your life today that are way bigger than what we can fix. There are situations that we face on a daily basis that have us in over our heads and we need to pray.
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We pray because we get to. We pray because we need to. And as Christ followers, we pray because Jesus prays. And we want to follow him and be like him. So yes, we pray. We do pray.
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If my public prayers outshine my private prayers, then I'm more of a showman than a saint. Right? If my public prayers are more impressive than my private prayers, I'm just showing off. I'm more concerned about image than intimacy with God.
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You don't need to impress God. You don't need to manipulate him into showing you favor. He already knows what you need before you ask him.
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Do not be anxious about anything. And I think that even includes how you pray. You know, how. Getting the words just right. Getting the posture just right. Getting the tone just right. Now that anxiety he's talking about is much broader than that, but it certainly includes that. He says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And then the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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Prayer is more trusting than trying. It's more belonging than begging. Do pray. Pray differently.
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We are talking to our Father. Now, for some people, that's a painful word, because your relationship with your Father. The Heavenly Father would love to erase that and replace that and replace that with the reality.of himself being the good, faithful, loving, perfect Father.
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We are coming into the presence of the Father who loves us. We read in Galatians chapter 4, because you are his sons, God sent his spirit, or the spirit of his son into our hearts. The spirit who cries out, Abba, Father. That's a tender, affectionate, respectful term. It's like saying, dearest Father. It is respectful, but at the same time, it's very emotionally charged. It's a very tender word. And we're told that that is how God wants us to see him.
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When we pray relationally, it's more like a love letter than a shopping list.
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Meaningful prayers, relational prayers, the kind of prayers that Jesus teaches us to pray are more like a love letter. They're more like a conversation with a heavenly father that loves us and we love him. It's more about connection than transaction.
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Heaven is God's ultimate reality. It is where God's rule and reign are supreme. Heaven is the realm in which everything gladly and wholeheartedly submits to the sovereignty of God.
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The two realities are different, but they're not distant. Jesus said the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is among you. He said the kingdom of heaven is here. It has come.
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Prayer is an overlap of our reality, our perceived reality, and God's ultimate reality. They overlap when we come to God in prayer.
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I have found it very helpful some days just to sit quietly in God's presence and realize that I pray. I am in this sacred intersection between heaven and earth, in God's presence. And I can hold loosely in my hands the concerns for my family, the concerns for the church, the concerns for our nation and our world. I can hold them in my hands in the presence of God and entrust them to him in this sacred space where heaven meets earth, that space that we call prayer.
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Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
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Our God, our Father in heaven is not way out there. In prayer, our Father in heaven is right here. He's right here. It is that sacred space where our lives and our reality and God's reality blend.
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When we pray, we join our voices with saints across the ages and believers around the globe. When we say, Our Father, we're praying with the saints of the past. When we say, Our Father, we're praying with the believer in China this morning, the believer in Venezuela, the believer in the church down the street. We're praying with the believer in the seat next to us when we say, Our Father.
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When we embrace them in this word, our Father, when we pray, when we think and we say our Father, it's not just me, it's me and you and you and you and them, our Father in heaven, we come to you right now. When we do that, it reshapes how we see people. It reshapes how we view and treat people.
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This privilege of prayer is yours through Jesus Christ. The only right we have to pray is because Jesus made a way for us.
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See prayer is more trusting than trying it's more belonging than begging and that is all true because of Jesus.
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