Real Hope: Paradoxes of GodSample

Why Does God Expect Us To Pray And Ask?

Let me be upfront: Why would Jesus give us a model for prayer if He thought that praying to God, who knows what we are going to ask and what will happen, was pointless?

Jesus is recorded in the Gospels to have withdrawn to pray on many occasions, even though there was a great need (Matthew 14:23, Mark 6:46, Luke 6:12).

Prayer reminds us that there are bigger things than just us and our individual needs. Through prayer we give things over to God, being open and honest. God knows, loves, and cares for us deeply and wants to hear what we feel and think about the world, a situation, a circumstance, a person, our sins, the future, our fears, our hopes, and dreams.

Remember, we can never be right enough in ourselves to approach God. He wants us to come as we are and He accepts us not waiting until we’re ‘better’ to approach Him.

Don’t be too proud to approach God. It’s OK to come before God and ask for His help, acknowledging that we can’t ‘fix’ things. And there is no right way to pray. You can use the words Jesus taught, or you can say, ‘I don’t know what to say God’, and start from there with whatever is on your heart in any order, short or long, formal or chatty, it doesn’t matter. Be confident that you can bring everything to God in prayer.

Written by DAVID BARKER

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