By Chris WittsTuesday 30 Jul 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
What do you understand prayer to be? Now this is an interesting question. Prayer. Unfortunately, prayer is often misunderstood as some vague, mystical element that you should avoid until you absolutely have to. In other words, when you get into a tight spot, then you turn to God. In other words, it’s a real urgent request at the last resort.
I think a lot of people think like that. The shame of that, of course, is that prayer should be the first resort, not the last resort. It reminds me that when the terrible cyclone hit Darwin back in 1974 it seems so long ago, doesn’t it? But I guess we remember that occasion. That was Christmas 1974 and the mayor of Darwin at that time was a lady called Ella Stack, and she was reported as saying this.
“There were no atheists in Darwin that night. Everybody was under their beds, praying.”
So you see, prayer becomes, for some people, something that is linked with an emergency. Well, most of us pray, I think, at some time in our life, even if it’s a sort of a last-minute panic type of prayer.
And I’m talking about maybe a moment of crisis when sickness or tragedy threatens our very lives, as it did for those in Darwin, or perhaps at work when things are not going well. Maybe as a parent, you’ve prayed for one of your kids. Maybe one of the children is sick, facing a difficult time at school or facing bullies or something of that nature.
The real purpose of prayer
Now prayer can be about anything. In fact, it can be about all sorts of things, and prayer can be done in so many ways. What I’m saying to you today is you don’t have to go to church to pray. I think what’s really important is this that while the Bible does teach some basic elements about prayer and you can read about them in mainly the New Testament, the overwhelming message is not how to pray, but simply an encouragement to pray. In other words, it’s the important fact that you pray – not whether you kneel, sit down or whatever you do,
Jesus taught that the prayer God hears is the sincere and honest expression of what we say, what we feel that’s said to Him. I heard an interesting book called Short Prayers for Long Days. This was written by Greg Mitchell. Now I’m not sure if this book was still in print or not. But Greg Mitchell wrote about 30 Children’s books and teaching texts.
The idea of this book came to him when he was on a retreat, a spiritual retreat. And he said the prayers that I heard were in God language. So he said, I decided to write something in non-God language, and his first prayer went like this.
Dear God, I come to pray that I pray well.
And the books asks some pertinent questions about God, about life and prayer, for example. God, do you answer prayers that aren’t done well. Can I pray with my hands in my pockets and my shirt hanging out? Why does prayer come easy when there’s something else worse to do?
They’re the sort of interesting questions, and they are real questions that demand an answer because sometimes we get the impression that prayer is difficult or that you have to be a particularly Holy person or worthy for God to hear. But if you read the Gospels, you’ll discover that, Jesus explained. Prayer is a very simple thing.
It’s not the length of the prayer or how eloquent the prayer is. It’s what’s in the heart.
So it can be a a laugh. I mean, you can pray, laughing. Nothing wrong with that, or crying or when you’re feeling depressed. God hears and responds, because it is the fact that God knows us. He is present in our world. He’s our friend. God is our friend. He’s available 24 hours a day. He’s not like a magician that’s there to give us what we want. But he’s our friend, a divine friend, and our God wants to develop a personal relationship with us. So if you’re not good at words, don’t worry about that. He still loves you completely and honestly.
Someone has said that prayer is the Christian’s vital breath. And of course that is true. Remember that prayer has no boundaries. It can’t be walled in. You can certainly reach God in prayer, whether you’re used to it or not.
Let’s Pray
Heavenly Father, we praise you and thank you for your presence today. You are a living Lord. You participate in our lives. It’s in you. We live and breathe and we exist. We thank you for that. You provide the very air we breathe. Thank you for the wonder of life and help us to pray and talk to you today. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.