Good Morning
All!!
1 John 5:14; “We are confident that God listens to us if we ask
for anything that has his approval.”
One of my all-time favorite TV shows has to
be “Columbo”. I loved his car, his dog,
the way his clothes always looked like he slept in them. Yet the best thing was the question; he
always would ask the suspect a series of innocuous questions and then share his
doubts with him. Just as Columbo was
about to leave, he would turn around and say, “Excuse me, I hate to bother you
but I have one more question.” He always
was asking questions. He might be
running down the road or climbing stairs or hanging out of a window but he
always asked questions.
I think one of the reasons I like it is
because I am not much of a question asker.
I am one of the silent ones. I
let others ask, I leave the questions unasked; I am one of those guys. I am one of those guys who are afraid that
the question is dumb or will make me look dumb.
The question will be irrelevant or inappropriate. Something along that line. I think many of us are this way. We are unsure of asking questions, we are
unsure of exposing our self to others scrutiny.
For many of us, this is true of our prayer
life as well. We often look at prayer as
asking for permission or asking “the stupid question in class;” it makes us
somewhat uncomfortable so we don’t ask, we don’t pray. So we go through life missing out on one of
God’s great gifts: the gift of prayer.
The thing we need to remember is that prayer is not as much about the
“what”, that is what we are praying/asking for; rather it is more about our
relationship with God.
If you are a parent or grandparent, you
probably understand this. When you talk
with your children or grandchildren, it is not the “what” that matters; it is
the connecting, the sharing, the interaction of your life in theirs. You want to be a part of their life; you want
them to love you and to trust you enough to share with you. In many ways this is how God wants his
relationship to be with you. God speaks
to us through his Word and then listens to us through our prayers.
God invites us to speak to him, not for the
“what” but for the forming, building, strengthening of our relationship with
him. A stronger relationship with God
our Father leads us to have a stronger faith which gives us the ability to
endure the trials of this life. So God invites
us to ask, to pray to him with the proper mindset. We pray according to his will; we pray
according to his will when we seek to build our relationship with God and not
with the “what” of this world. Pray to
God, often. It is not about the “what”
rather it is about building your relationship with God the Father.
Father, we cry Abba to you. Hear us as we cry to you. Build up our desire and love for you. Build our desire to speak to you. Build our desire to listen to you. Guide us as we engage in the holy
conversation with you. Strengthen our
faith and give us the certain hope. Be
with those most in need of your mercy.
Move them to call upon you. In
Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.
God’s
Peace,
Pastor Bret
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