Yet Another Year of Choices
By Barbara Dahlgren
Believe it or not, the ultimate goal of prayer is not to get God to give us everything we want. “Give me, give me, give me” prayers miss the mark. If that’s the only prayer we offer God, our prayer life will become ineffective. Prayer is a way of entering into a relationship with God.
Therefore, prayer can have many components: praise (1 Chronicles 29:10-13), adoration (Ephesians 3:14-21), thanksgiving (Ephesians 5:20), supplication (Matthew 7:7, Philippians 4:6), confession (Proverbs 28:13, 1 John 1:9), and so on. There are many ways to approach prayer.
If anyone should have known how to pray, it should have been the disciples. Yet one of them asked Jesus to “teach us to pray.” (Luke 11:1) He wasn’t just asking for himself, but for all of them – teach “us.” Maybe these disciples knew how to pray but they were aware that there was more to it, so they were asking for further instructions, deeper relationship, and more understanding – perhaps a different way of looking at prayer. We can ask God the same question. Lord, teach us more about this wonderful, direct access we have with you.
Why? So we can get what we want? I think not!
Lord teach us to pray…
- so we can stay attuned to Your presence.
- so we stay focused on You.
- so we can realize all blessings come from You.
- so we can love You with our whole hearts.
- so we can love our brothers and sisters in Christ.
- so we can love our neighbors.
- so we can appreciate the beauty of Your creation.
- so we can forgive those who have wronged us.
- so we will not be hypocrites.
- so we can be an instrument of Your peace.
- so we will trust You more and more.
- so we can participate in Your plan rather than have our own agenda.
- so we can promote unity in the church.
- so we can exercise Your wisdom.
- so we can be less critical and more understanding.
- so we can esteem others better than ourselves.
- so we speak only Your truth in love.
- so our actions glorify You.
- so we can have compassion on the hurting and suffering around us.
- so we can be a reflection of Your love.
- so we can glorify You.
- so we can align our will to Yours.
We were created to be in a relationship with God. Prayer is part of that process. A deep, meaningful relationship cannot form unless we have a means of constant contact. Prayer is our avenue of developing that relationship. It provides continual dialogue with God.
Consider this… Perhaps our prayers would get more results if we didn’t approach them with the attitude of “I wonder what God can do for me today?” Maybe asking God what we can do to better serve Him each day would make all our prayers more effective.
One final thought…
“Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.” ~Mother Teresa
