Prayer

Good day ladies and gentlemen, today I wanna talk about something that alot of us tend to take for granted, prayer.

It is an interesting what many people regard prayer as. Some even think, why bother praying? If God is the beginning and the end, if He is omniscient, if He knows everything, and has already predestined things, why pray? But I beg to differ, Prayer is one of the most powerful weapons and tools as children of God that we can wield. Because the bible says, whatever you bind on earth will be bounded in heaven(Matt 16:19), prayer has the power to move the heavens, to break chains, to bring peace, sometimes when all else fails and nothing can be done, there is still prayer, because there is still God.

1)Prayer + persistence
Luke 11 is a powerful and interesting passage. Its Jesus' take on prayer. He starts off by saying, "Father, hallowed be Thy name, your kingdom come."(11:2). First, Jesus acknowledges that God is God. God is father, friend, healer, lover, comforter, saviour, but above all, God is God. We tend to forget sometimes, that in the midst of everything, good or bad, God is actually still God. Then he goes on to tell the parable, one of my favourites, about the man asking for bread. In verse 8 he says "I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's BOLDNESS he will get up and give him as much as he needs." Sometimes, all we have to do is to be bold enough to ask God. Not defy Him, but to be bold, to have the attitude that we are children of God, to go and and say "Hey Dad, I got something to say about this." Just like in Genesis 18:16-33, in the story of Abraham pleading for Sodom. First Ab tells God, if there are 50 righteous ppl in Sodom, spare them! God says, ok. Then he changes his mind, he says, now that I am so bold, how bout just 40 ppl instead? God agrees. Eventually Ab changes all the way to 10 ppl! God agrees all the way. Jesus says, ask and it will be give to you, knock and the door will be opened(Luke 11:9) and i love verse 13 which says if we as men are evil and know how to give good gifts, what more God in heaven? Romans 8:32 says "He who did not spare his own son, but gave his up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" Somethings are already meant for the taking, its a matter of whether we would be bold and persistent enough to go to God and claim it. Just like how Jacob wrestled with God, and how God granted King Hezekiah 15 more years of his life after telling him thru Isaiah that his time was up. IF only we would be bold enough to be persistent.

2) Prayer = personal
I find how some people treat prayer as a mechanical exercise distasteful. What a lot of people do not realise that prayer is in fact conversation with God. Its just that, plain and simple. Most times, people fail in the first step of prayer, and that is turning up. All we have to do when we pray, is turn up. God is already there, where are we? And its funny how we tend to beat around the bush when it comes to prayer, I mean come on, we are talking to GOD, who already knows what we want b4 we actually tell him. Thats the beauty of it, with God, we can be as honest as we want. Imagine a child carrying a christmas wishlist and sitting on the lap of her father, though some of the requests would be unreasonable, but won't the father be glad just to have her pour her heart out to him? I believe prayer should really be a time of honesty and all forms of pretense should be out left out. Speak your heart out when you are with God, complain, lament, praise, curse, do whatever, bcos God already knows whats in your heart, and when you are open with it God really appreciates it. Sometimes we tend to think, somethings i really shouldnt pray about, or talk with to God, somethings are inappropriate. The psalms are prayers to God, and not of them are singing praises, some of them are lamenting, complaining, but all of them were honest. It is when we can come to God with that kind of trust and vulnerability that things begind to change. And its not doing God a favour, its doing ourselves good. Sometimes just by coming to God and telling him your deepest desires and fears, you learn something about yourself, sometimes prayer does not neccessarily have to change the situation, but more likely changing how we view by revealing to us how God views it.

I urge and encourage you my brothers and sisters, to make prayer a priority. After all, if we can spend hours on the phone with friends, msn all night, facebook all day, can't we even spare some time to hang out with God? I used to feel bad falling asleep praying halfway, but it never occured to me that there is no other better way to fall asleep than in the arms of a loving Father.


I thank you all for reading this space, for now I will post what I have posted on Facebook but in the future there will be definitely new material here. So keep your hearts open and pray for fresh new revelation each day, God bless you!