The Purpose of Prayer

   

The Purpose of Prayer

In the Bible, God urges humans to pray several times. Why, then, should we pray? What is the significance of prayer in our lives? This is a question that many Christians, as well as people of other religions, have asked. What is the sense of prayer if God oversees both human history and individual lives? Understanding what prayer is is essential to discovering the solution.

What is prayer

If you view prayer as a means of establishing control over your you will be worried and agitated by what appears to be unanswered prayer. However, if you consider prayer to be an ongoing dialogue with God, you'll realize there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer

God may choose not to do what you request when you request it. You may have times when you struggle to hear what He is saying for a variety of reasons. It is indeed difficult to hear no, or even not yet, to what seems to be a good and valid request. However, if prayer is first and foremost a conversation between you and God, then His promise to always listen may be the response your heart most desperately needs.

"Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart," (Psalm 37:4, NIV) says a well-known Bible scripture, the is often misunderstood.

This verse might be interpreted to mean that if you focus on enjoying God, He will give you whatever you want. Or you can understand it to mean that if you take pleasure in the things of God above all else in your life, He will shape your heart to desire the things He already desires to give you. His wants will become your wants. His purpose for your life will become your purpose for life. I believe the latter to be true based on my own experience in my walk with Him.

There is no guarantee, not even in scripture, that God will act in our timelines or provide all we want. Remember that you belong to God, and He will take care of you for His sake, not yours! Instead of praying simply for ourselves, our wants, and our interests, we should ask God to fulfill His will through us. 'Lord, use us for Your Kingdom, fulfill your purpose through us.'

Why Pray

With this in mind, let's take a look at the reasons we choose to pray — and some of the reasons we don't. Prayer appears to be paradoxical. In what other situation would you ask for anything or beg someone when you know they already have their mind made up on what they would do?

Psalm 115:3 even tells us, “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.”

True, God knows everything that will happen for the rest of eternity. He is aware of both the major and minor occurrences in each of our lives, and nothing is beyond His control. So it's a mistake to conceive of prayer as a tool to change God's mind or change His course of action in a given scenario.

Prayer is a process through which we learn to trust God. He listens to us patiently. He carefully listens to us. He is attentive to our requests. Then He evaluates everything in the perspective of the larger picture that only He sees.

God understands better than you do what will happen in each given situation. It's easy to accept this concept when it doesn't apply to you, but the true test of faith comes when God asks you to trust Him with something or someone vital to you.

Effects of Prayer

So when we pray we are acknowledging that we are not God because we cannot accomplish what we want to do in our own strength. When we pray we invite God into our struggles. We acknowledge that God holds all the power as the rightful owner of our lives.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5-6 )
When we pray we are choosing to humble ourselves before someone we cannot see, hear or touch. We all come to God in faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God.




"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Hebrews 11:6, NIV)

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