The Importance of Prayer

Preface
For one of my classes, I am to answer a reflective question each week. So, if the topics seem odd it is because they are not orignal but merely me fulfilling an assignment like the good student I am. (Those who know me will pick up on the dry humor in the latter part of the last sentence.) I find that the questions are helpful and give me a good reason to post something.

The Post
In the past week I have been reading from Matthew, Psalms, Romans, and Numbers. The Book of Numbers has actually taken on new significance and interest for me as I have observed the role and importance of the nations in the book. I now read with a highlighter in hand so as to mark whenever the nations or peoples are mentioned. Lately, my prayer life has been suffering because I have not been trusting, and even resisting, that God would answer my prayers. Who am I that He should think of me, to do for me? As I write this, I hear a voice in my head that says, “It is not for your service that I answer your prayers but to display My glory.” Wow. I have been selfish in my prayer life. It isn’t about what God can do for me but how He uses me to display His glory to the people around me. I have also been struggling with the thought that I am not useful to God. I link usefulness with action; if I am not doing something then I am not being useful. With regard to prayer, God’s glory is displayed more by my inaction because it is Him doing everything and, therefore, deserving of all the glory. I am thankful for these moments of humbling, but I am even more thankful that God humbles gently more often than not.

Anyway, the verse I was going to share is Romans 8:32 which says, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” I was actually talking with a friend last night about knowing when God has spoken to you, and this morning He did through His Word. I need not be afraid of prayer or hesitant of it. I need not doubt that my prayers will go unanswered. God has already answered the prayer of my heart by giving me Christ. Since, He has already given me the most wonderful, precious, and priceless (and for God the most difficult to give up) thing in the world, why would He not give me things of lesser value? To paraphrase the popular t-shirts: The answer to the prayer is Christ, the rest is just details.

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