Why Pray?

It seems like things on campus have cooled down quite a bit since last quarter, or at least things aren't as much "on the surface" as they had been. When things are heated on campus, it is easy to pray and to think of all of the glorious things God is doing and will do and that is good. But when things calm down, sometimes so does our motivation to pray. For our campus, for our friends, for our families...whatever it is we pray for. When we feel like we aren't seeing the desired "results," when we feel like God isn't moving or listening to what we are pleading for, it becomes hard to still pray.

Let's go back to the heart of prayer. Prayer isn't just us telling God our wish list. It is so much deeper, so much more personal, so much more beautiful than that. We get to interact with the Father, listen to what He is saying, communicate with Him, and share emotions with Him. When we intercede, we get in touch with how He is already feeling about a situation He knows much more about and cares much more about than we ever could. We get tired when we just plead and plead, but we get energy and passion when we allow God to speak first, when we listen to what He is saying, when we remember that He is God, that He is in control, that He is Love, and that He is our hope.

Ephesians 3 reminds me of how URGENT and BEAUTIFUL and FREEING this gospel message is. How we will, with all the saints, understand the depth the height, the width and the length of the love of God. How when we pray, when we share what the Lord has done, God will do INFINITELY more than we can imagine. Because He is more creative and He has so much more love than we do, and so much more wisdom and knowledge. We pray because it moves His heart. It is our privilege, and He doesn't want us to get burned out.

If you are weary, take rest in Him. He is our strength, our redeemer, our deliverer, our Abba Father. It is a beautiful thing that He loves us just the same when we sit before Him as when we intercede, when we go to large group or don't go to large group, when we go pray for people or when we don't. We can come to Him first and let all things fall from there. :) mmmm