Talking with God

One Friday evening after I picked my oldest son Dru up from school we had a discussion that led to him receiving Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.  On the following Sunday morning that 5 year old boy walked, without mom or dad, up to the front of the church to make his profession of faith public.  On Sunday evening I sat him down to talk with him about the things he was supposed to do now that he was a Christian.  I asked him what two things, prayer & reading the Bible, he thought he should do now that he was a Christian.  In his childish innocence he didn't miss a beat by telling me that he thought a Christian should exercise and eat meat.  Although he missed the mark with his answers I did explain that a Christian is supposed to pray and read their Bible every day.  I asked him if he would want to start doing his prayer time with me first thing in the mornings.  He said he would and I was skeptical as to whether he would follow through in the morning because of his love of sleep.  Although he was very tired on Monday morning he promptly stood up and went to do his prayer time with his Father and me.

There is a lot we can learn from the scriptures and this young child’s example of why prayer is such an important part of our walk as Christians.  Prayer is important because…

1. It opens up communication with God.

On this side of eternity we will never fully understand how prayer works.  How do I verbally say a prayer or mentally say a prayer and God will hear either one?  How does it all work?  We don’t know but what it does is it opens up the lines of communication with God.  He wants us to spend time talking with Him.  By spending that time in prayer we are able to tell God anything and everything we have on our mind or what is weighing on our heart.  We are also able to listen to God speak to us through answering our prayers and through that still small voice.

2. It helps us to grow in our faith.

Hebrews 11:1 tells us “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  Faith is all about relying on something or putting our complete trust, our complete dependence on something that we cannot see.  That’s why we call it faith.  As we spend time in prayer and see God regularly answer our prayers and direct our lives our faith is strengthened.  We are reassured that God is who God says He is.  Here’s an example that God answers prayers so that we can grow in our faith.  On that Friday morning when I was writing in my prayer journal I wrote out a prayer I prayed regularly for the five years prior.  Praying for my sons Dru & Cooper this is what it said “I pray they would each come to know Christ as their Lord.”  How was I to know that twelve hours later God would answer that prayer in a profound way?  My faith in God was strengthened by His answering of my prayers.

3. It was modeled by Christ.

The Gospels are filled with stories of how Jesus took time, very often, to go and pray to God the Father.  Jesus even taught His disciples how to pray.  As Christians we understand that Jesus is our supreme example and that we should follow that example.  Just like forgiveness, mercy, grace & love were all modeled by Christ while here on Earth we should not only follow those examples but we should also follow His lead in regularly praying to God the Father.

These are just a few reasons as to why prayer is important to our faith as Christians.  If we will regularly give ourselves to prayer God will use that time to speak to us and to help us grow in our faith.  If you don’t regularly spend time with God in prayer I encourage you to start making it a habit today and you will be so glad that you did!

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