1. Prayer is a relationship with God.
How neat is it that we can actually talk to God? Earthly kings generally sit high upon their thrones & allow very few people to approach them in conversation, but our God invites us into His Presence! He looks forward to our conversations with Him, & He always listens to the voice of His children. Even when we stumble & fall, He’s there to pick us back up & set us on our feet again, because He loves us. He cares very much about each one of us, & the stronger your relationship with Him becomes, the more you are able to see His love made manifest in your life. God always has loved us with perfect love. He’s never loved us less than He does now, & He’ll never love us any more than He already does, because He is the epitome of love.
2. Prayer connects us to God.
God’s love is not intended to be a one-way relationship. He loves us because He is love, & not because of what we can do for Him or because of what we have done, but as we pursue a relationship with Him, we wade deeper & deeper into that love & experience it in more ways than we thought imaginable. In order to have a strong relationship with someone, you must put an effort into spending time with them. You likely talk with them a lot, & in doing that, you become closer to that person by knowing a little more about what goes on in their heart. You see, prayer is what gives us the ability to have those bond-building conversations with God. It allows us to know His heart, & it gives us the opportunity to verbally pour out our own hearts to Him. It draws the two of you closer to each other, & in prayer, we learn God’s will for our lives, as well as His will for the lives of others around us, whom He uses us to touch.
3. God speaks to us when we pray.
In prayer, God speaks to us. Through His Holy Spirit, we speak to God, & through the same Holy Spirit, God tells us key details in living a life that glorifies Him. When we make God our priority & set aside time to truly seek Him with a sincere heart, He opens our hearts to receive His words. Though it can be hard to remember, prayer is a two-way conversation. It isn’t necessarily like the conversations you would have with your sister or brother or parent or your best friend, because God doesn’t always speak with a physically audible voice. He doesn’t show His physical face to us, but even so, He hears, & He speaks. God speaks to our hearts, which is one reason why it is so very important to guard your heart & what you allow to take up space in your heart.
4. Prayer strengthens us.
Another reason why prayer is important is because it strengthens us. The fact is, life on earth can be pretty tough sometimes. There is still the presence of sin in this world, & there are still hardships & trials. The good part, though, is that even though we are exposed to these things, we don’t have to remain victims to them. Through prayer & through a relationship with God, we can stand from the place of victory where Jesus stands, as One Who conquered death, Hell, & the grave. We can see life the way God sees it; as a source of joy & hope & love & strength. Through prayer, we know God Himself, which is truly the greatest & most worthwhile thing of all time. All other things pale in comparison to the ability to have a relationship with God, & through prayer, we have that beautiful relationship.
5. Jesus prayed.
Many times we see Jesus going off alone to pray. He understood how much it really matters to have a relationship with God, & He was a true example of the way we should prioritize God in our own lives. Jesus praised God, He asked God for wisdom, He prayed over other people & healed them, & He even cried out to God in desperation as He took His final breath before dying on the cross, which He died on to glorify God & to restore our ability to have a relationship with Him. Jesus treated a relationship with God as the source of life itself, because it is just that.
6. Prayer changes us.
Through prayer, we connect & communicate with God, our Father & Creator, & we are able to receive wisdom from Him. Through our prayer life, God strengthens us, heals our tired hearts, & gives us an entirely new perspective on life. God opens our eyes when we look to Him. He shows us things the way He designed them to be, & He lets us see things in faith through the Holy Spirit that we would never be able to see on our own. He helps us mature & grow, & He leads us into deeper relationship with Him as we seek His face. God draws us closer to Himself as we make Him our priority, & He equips us with the tools that we need to live an abundant life. He leads us to what He is calling each of us individually to do, & He shows us His plans for our lives. Not only is there an inward change that takes place when we pray, but wherever there is an inward change, there is also an outward change. When our hearts & minds are focused in harmony on God, it changes our thoughts & helps us become more aware of our emotions. The Holy Spirit leads us to speak life-giving words, & as we nurture our prayer life, we become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
7. Prayer changes situations.
The outward situations that change are not only those in our own hearts & lives. When we pray, we receive special anointing from the Holy Spirit, & as it is certainly shown in Acts, the Holy Spirit is very powerful, & God works through Him in beautiful ways. Through Holy Spirit's power, God calls us to pray over & heal the sick. He calls us to rebuke the Devil & put him back where he belongs (which is NOT in our lives). The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to see things differently as well, & through Him, situations we once saw as hopeless become opportunities for growth & positive change, & as He walks us through these situations, He causes us to cultivate deeper faith than we had before. The Holy Spirit empowers us to make a difference in this world, which is what God calls us to do to begin with. The neatest part about all of this is that God does not call us to do things that He is not willing to equip us to do. The problem comes when we think we can do it on our own & we don’t come to Him for support. Prayer is an absolute key in our lives, from being the way that we become Christians to being the way we gain wisdom from God. Most importantly, it’s the way we are able to know God. Knowing Him is truly the greatest treasure we can ever have.
I hope you enjoyed this post, & that it served as a reminder of what prayer really is. This is the first post of many in my new series, titled “Spiritually Sprouting”, & I look forward to seeing what else God has in store! To read other blog posts from Spiritually Sprouting, click here. Click through to my Instagram to read shorter posts on the Spiritually Sprouting series, & be sure to read a post or two from my last series, #Come2Overcome2016 .
Blessings, Allison