When We Pray

All sorts of good things can happen when we pray! We start by praising and thanking God for the many blessings in our lives – that starts with us being here at all! And then we ask forgiveness for our sins against God, which means any sin against another person because Jesus said, what you do to others, you do to Him! So, we must ask forgiveness when we harm anyone because that also offends the Lord.

Then, we can certainly ask for things. But keep in mind that God is not in the business of ‘granting our requests’ like a genie or giving us what we want because we’ve been ‘good’ like Santa Claus. God wants, first and foremost, relationship with us. He wants to know we love Him and live our lives to glorify His name. If we don’t know God, we can’t love God. So, get to know Him; spend some time talking to God. That’s prayer.

I’ve been over this a time or two in my blog before and in my book, as well. But it bears repeating as too many people don’t know that prayer involves a conversation. It’s not just us being in ‘transmit’ mode where we tell God what we think we need and He listens, makes notes, and provides. Nor it just us listening to Him and remaining silent about our concerns, our joys, our sorrows, just what we’re doing and how we feel about it. God knows our hearts and our thoughts already, but that should not keep us from sharing. It’s human to want to share with others; God knows that; He knows us. We were made for communion; He made us for communion. And the One whom we should most wish to commune is our Creator who loved us into being.

I recently read a priest’s blog, unfortunately, I can’t recall his name, but he said that, if you have wandered away from the Lord and would like to find your way back, begin each morning saying, “Good Morning, Jesus!” And you should do that for 3 weeks. He said that you would find yourself in a better attitude to begin your relationship with the Lord again. Why not give it a try if you have left the Lord behind. He is always ready to take us back and always ready to pour His grace into our hearts! If you greet Jesus every morning, you will most likely be moved to live your life in a way that is pleasing to Him. And then you will be sorry for the things you have been doing that do not glorify His name or advance His kingdom. He is so ready to forgive and embrace you again! (Think Prodigal Son-He’s the dad in that scenario.)

Relationships only flourish when people communicate. It’s about knowing one another and loving one another. It’s the same when we spend our time with the Lord – it can only grow into a deeper relationship. From that we learn to trust God, and we can invite Him into our hearts and our lives. He wants to be there; He wants to be the center of our lives so we can have true peace, true joy, certain hope, and love for our neighbor because we love Him.

Listen to the song below and enjoy the encouragement and the positivity you will hear there.

God bless you! Now go talk to the Lord and let me know how it goes!