Quarantine Youth: PrayerSample

What you really need

A lot of people treat prayer as a time to ask God for things, and in some ways it is. In our consumer driven culture it is easy to view God as though He is Santa Clause...

He sees you when you’re sleeping,

He knows when you’re awake,

He knows if you’ve been bad or good,

So be good for goodness sake!

We tend toward this subconscious thought that if we are good enough, then God owes us what we want.

Perhaps a better metaphor is, we treat God like an ATM machine. If we have stored up enough good in our account, then whenever we stop by we can make a withdrawal.

Both of these lines of thinking are really toxic to our faith.

You can not earn God’s goodness, He just gives it to you. We call that grace.

And while you do often reap what you sew, you don’t have a credit line with God.

Prayer is not transactional. Prayer is communal. A transactional relationship is a utility; it’s having a relationship just for whatever use you can take from it. A communal relationship is a relationship of trust; it is a relationship built on maintaining love, not earning it.

Jesus teaches us to pray that God would give us what we need, not what we want. Jesus knew that our shortsighted desires would get in the way, that we would need clarity. If you’re going to ask God for something, it is wise to check your desires. Is this just something that I want right now or, is it something that will actually be helpful in the long term?

It is interesting that the two things that Jesus tells us to ask for as we pray are bread, and forgiveness. He knows what we really need:

Bread-the basic things you need to sustain you in this life

Forgiveness-the fundamental thing you need in your relationship with God, and with others

Take some time today to reshape the way you think about prayer, and about God. Is He just some sort of giving machine to you, or is He your Father? What does your relationship with Him look like? Are you just looking to get what you can out of God, or are you trusting Him to take care of your deepest needs?