I mean, from their perspective we all talk to someone nobody can see and eat the flesh and drink the blood of some guy who used to be alive but came out of the grave to walk the earth again. Sounds like some psycho cannibalistic zombie movie to me...
The amazing, incredible, awesomely-good thing about Christianity is this - IT'S NOT CRAZY AT ALL! I won't go into every single detail of why Christianity is not a religion full of crazy people, mainly because I would never do it enough justice and would probably hurt the cause for Christ more than I would help it (If you want a good book on the subject, go check out The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel. He's a converted atheist and he's amazing!). However, there is one aspect of Christianity that I get the chance to think a little deeper on every so often. It's a part of my faith that I can never get enough of, don't do nearly as frequently as I should/would like, and yet love almost as much as the fact that I am freed from the burden of sin forever. It's prayer.
No, we as Christians don't talk to ourselves or some unseen nobody. We talk to Someone who is much greater than that, and He talks back to us through His inspired Word. We talk to the God of the universe, the Maker of all things that are seen and unseen, the Alpha and Omega, the One Way, Truth and Life against which everything in life is weighed and measured.
Even better than that - who'd've thunk there could be anything better?! - He listens to us! He takes the time to hear every prayer that we offer up to Him. The Bible describes our prayers as 'sweet incense' to the Father. They are precious to Him just as we are precious to Him. It pleases God for us to pray to Him and it pleases Him to listen to us.
Here's the part I can never get over. Even though the Bible says that God answers prayers, people still complain that 'He didn't answer my prayer' or 'My mom still died of cancer even though I prayed for her healing.' Even though the Bible says that God is just and kind, loving and merciful, full of grace, the great healer, people still complain that God never did anything for them. Long story short, the fact that you're still alive and breathing is more than He ever had to do for you, and He didn't even have to do that! The point I'm so laboriously coming to is this - prayer is a great communication tool but it's an even greater learning tool. I've seen God teach me so much through the discipline of prayer. I've heard so many stories of what God taught other people through the act of praying. Consider these questions and their answers:
What is the ultimate purpose of God? To glorify Himself.
What is the ultimate purpose of man? To glorify God.
See a cure for cancer anywhere in there? Do you see God giving you a million dollars anywhere in there? Do you see promises of anything related to you in there at all? NO! And why not? Because as amazing as it is that God blesses us and offers us grace that we don't deserve, His goal is still to bring glory to His own Name. So, prayer works the same way. Prayer is useful for a lot of things, but ultimately it's to bring God all the glory that He is due.
The closer we grow to God, the more He will strip away our desires and replace them with His own. The closer we grow to God, the more He will tear away our wants and needs and replace them with His wants and needs. God is slowly teaching me that as self-seeking and sinful as I can be, He wants to be glorified that much more. And so God continues to teach.
He is showing me that maybe my prayer shouldn't be that cancer be healed but that someone's soul would be healed instead.
He is showing me that maybe my prayer shouldn't be that I have the winning argument, but that I would learn patience when talking to people who believe differently than I do.
He is showing me that maybe my prayer shouldn't be for someone else to come apologize to me, but that I should go and initiate the apology.
Instead of looking at prayer as a 'gift list' today, try looking at it as a classroom. What is God teaching you through prayer?
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