I don’t pray in order to get answers. Sometimes I feel like I’m not very spiritual when people talk about prayer and I compare my prayer life to theirs. I will admit that I do not pray as I ought. I need to work on the discipline of prayer. But it seems to me that some people, in their prayer lives, treat God like a genie in a bottle and prayer like rubbing the bottle.
I think that, instead of praying because we know prayer is powerful and because we know God will answer, we ought to pray just because we know God hears us. Pray simply because God is attentive to us. Have you ever been disappointed by God? Have you ever felt like God does not hear your prayers? How would our prayer life be different if we really believed that God really hears? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Keep on asking… Keep on seeking… Keep on knocking” (Matt. 7:7). It’s hard to miss Jesus’ point, because he says it three times: Be persistent in prayer, committed to prayer. Jesus is not saying that, if we pray, all of our problems will be fixed, all of our desires will be satisfied, and everything we want we’ll have: happiness, love, money. But, if we ask out of genuine need, will God not provide? I think the key to Jesus point is found in connection with the previous sayings, “Don’t serve money,” “Don’t worry about food and clothes,” “Seek God’s kingdom.” Don’t worry about all that stuff, just ask God. Ask God because He cares and He hears. Then Jesus uses our parents as an example. Our parents, even if not good parents, provided our basic needs. There are exceptions, but human parents usually give their kids what they need. If selfish, sinful, human parents know how to take care of their kids, don’t you think God knows how to take care of us? Why don’t we believe this? Why don’t we pray just because we know God cares? I believe that God provides for us, whether or not we ask. I don’t believe that prayer gets us stuff or that there are conditions on God’s compassion and provision. But I do believe that prayer contains a blessing. If prayer is an act of submitting yourself and your needs to God – even if the prayer itself doesn’t get our needs met (that’s God’s job) - then prayer itself will impact us positively. We will be changed. Prayer is an expression of reliance on God and that’s a good place to be. Prayer demonstrates that we are aware of God’s attentiveness to us. We ought to pray just because we know God hears.