“If God runs the universe, why should I pray?” People have asked similar questions of me. This question assumes that God doesn’t want to hear from us. That assumption isn’t at all true. He wants a personal, loving relationship with his children–us, his believers. A vital part of that kind of relationship is communication, that is, prayer from us to him and his messages back to us.
If you know people who doubt that God answers prayer, please give them my life-story What God Has Done.
How does God talk to me when I pray? Praying is merely talking with God. It doesn’t mean going through some fancy form of prayer. Read the Psalms, which are in poetic form, but try to hear the raw emotion expressed in them. David shows his feelings of anger and anxiety many times in imploring God to rescue him. God answers prayers with one of four replies: yes, no, not yet, and not in the way you think. After all, he is God, but we are not!
For true Christians, God answers their prayers as they read the Bible, listen to other people such as pastors, fellow Christians, and teachers. He also teaches us by giving us experiences and by planting thoughts in our eager brains.
If you want to fight our culture’s separation of God from it, read my Bible study Overcome Secular Humanism.
“How much should I pray?” That question has an answer that is both easy and hard to take. God has inspired the Apostle Paul to write in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray continually.” He means that we must pray all the time. Paul also says in Colossians 3:1 that God has lifted us up through Jesus’ resurrection and return to heaven with the result that we are in God’s heavenly council room now all the time, spiritually-speaking. Thus, praying is conversing with our divine Ruler, who always listens to us.
As a result, our talking with God should include six different kinds of prayer: praise for God’s divine qualities, thanks for his blessings, confession of our sins, prayer for others, prayer for ourselves, and laments (expressing our genuine feelings). Why should we pray these six kinds? The reason is that Bible’s writers have used these six types.
If you know people who don’t pray very much, give them my true autobiography What God Has Done.
What are you responses to this blogpost?
13 thoughts on “Prayer and Knowing God”
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