Daily Java: Pray continually. (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Prayer is our lifeline to God. In prayer we reconnect to the God that we serve. It is our pipeline to him and his favor.
It is hard to know someone or to love someone if you don’t know that person. We cannot truly serve God unless we know him. And we cannot know him unless we talk to him and get to know him.
The same is true with God.
When we pray – which is just an old word meaning to talk or to entreat – we connect to God and his being.
And prayer was meant for his people to use liberally and freely. As Hebrews says, we can boldly approach the throne of grace. We don’t have to make an appointment or stand in line or any of those things. We just come in and talk like our kids do with us.
Prayer was never intended to be used to rebuke others or to gripe in public. It was never intended to advance our own agendas.
If we gripe about things, we do it in private. The psalms are full of David especially griping to God about things that had gone wrong or people that had done wrong to him or to God.
Prayer was meant for us to call on him when we had trouble.
But corporate prayer – the prayer of people gathered together in his name - is meant to bring community concerns before the Father. Telling other people things you don’t like about them under the guise of prayer is not what God had in mind. It is foolishness masquerading as holiness.
Prayer is our hearts reaching out to our God. When you talk to him, it is like your children coming in and talking to you. Their hearts are reaching out to your heart and for a few moments, you share a great communion.
We often confuse prayer with a formal application of our desires and the occasional praise. We use stilted language and a formal manner as if we were addressing a government officer or one with whom we have little or nothing in common. Instead, we should speak as if we are coming into the presence of a trusted and loved parent, one with whom we have a good relationship, one we can talk to easily.
That is the lifeline. The more we talk to God, the more we will know him and he will know us. And the more that knowledge, the more the reconnection.
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