Pastor Ben’s Ponderings

“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”         (Jeremiah 33:3)

“Prayer changes things” is a message seen on everything from needlepoint pillows to bumper stickers, bookmarks, and t-shirts. But I’m not sure we’ve ever really stopped to think about it, though. Does praying something really make it so? And would we really want to believe in a God who worked that way? Sure, you might know the best things to ask for and the right way to do it, but what about the person next to you whose requests may very well cancel out your own?
It’s like praying for your team to win the Super Bowl. It’s the ultimate divine showdown. Both teams prayed for the trophy. Which one did God decide prayed harder? Or better? Or with more fans in a sheer numbers game? It’s ridiculous. And yet we still, with hearts pure and true, pour out our requests to god and wonder why He doesn’t seem to answer.
When Jesus said, “This is how you should pray…,” He was letting us in on one of the secrets. It’s not a shopping list; it’s a conversation. He’s not Santa Claus; He’s your Father. God knows what you want before you ask. You’re not letting Him in on anything new. He knows you need that job, that you want the test to come back negative, that you hope the check somehow won’t bounce. I even believe He cares enough to walk you through the most minor of your day’s concerns.
What really counts is that He hears from you — and that you’re willing to call. And He asks you to listen. The trick is learning to listen and hear the answer He wants, not the one you do. If you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around you, every moment becomes a prayer.
That’s the hardest lesson of all. Just like the little children we were and the little children we still are, it’s so much easier even not to just ask and ask and ask — and sometimes to beg and beg and beg for everything we want. As our Father, He will sit and patiently hear us out — but as He’s tried so many times to teach us and to show us, all He really wants to hear is our voice. He just asks that we begin that conversation with Him, that intimate, loving, trusting, tender kind of dialogue usually reserved for lovers or children — and that conversation should never end.