July 11, 2010 Bob Girard

I Samuel 12:19-24 Mark 6:7-13

As I began to think about today's message, I realized that last week I asked us many times to pray. I was wondering if we were being asked to pray for too many people - peace in the world, help in our own lives. I began to think that God must be overloaded with requests for help. If all of us are praying, our friends and neighbors are praying, how do our prayers get sorted out and answered? Well, I'll tell you up front, I do not have the answer, only the assurance that they are being heard. We are being given the answers we have asked for. We are not a prayerless group of people. Samuel in the Old Testament reading this morning was telling the people they needed to be stronger in their praying, and their answer would come. He considered it a sin not to be in prayer. He told them he would continue to pray for them, at the same time showing them how they should be praying. Jesus gave us the best direction for our prayer life. He prayed each day. He never allowed time for prayer to be pushed out of the day. Persistence in prayer got Him through all the events in His life. He prayed at His baptism, before approaching those who would become His disciples, during His transfiguration, in Gethsemane, even as He hung on the cross. Jesus' prayers always included confession, petitions and intercessions and thanksgiving. When the disciples saw how important prayer was to Jesus, they asked Him to teach them which He did. He gave them the prayer he gave to us to follow, The Lord's Prayer. Prayer is a precious privilege, an opportunity to quietly have God's total attention to ourselves. Prayer is not like a blank check granting us everything that we ask for. Prayer should be constant, not like a parachute we pull on only in case of an extreme emergency. Our prayers should never be a way to try to change God's mind, or to think we can bring Him to our way of thinking. God knows our needs before we even ask, but He wants us to ask. He wants to help us even more than we are willing to receive His help. There are rewards of our prayer life. First and most important of all is being able to feel God's presence with us as we pray. We also receive God's forgiveness as we tell Him of our shortcomings. When we are granted forgiveness, we become refreshed. There is a rush of oxygen to our smoldering embers, like I mentioned last week. Another reward is the refreshment of the Holy Spirit within us, a divine power. This helps us get though all of the difficulties and troubles we face in our daily living. A final reward is the peace that comes upon us through our prayer life. God grants us a calmness after sharing with Him in prayer. We know that our prayers will be answered, so we can now be open to receive His answer. I want to remind us however, the answer to our prayers may not come instantly. They may not be the answer we were expecting. They may come in unexpected ways, from people or places we never thought possible. Our prayers are always answered. God never lets us down. Prayer is our gift and privilege as well as responsibility. We can become stronger agents for God as we go about our daily lives, accomplishing so much for ourselves and others because we make time each day for prayer. How does God hear and sort out all of our prayers, I still don't know. I only know that He does. I know also how much better we feel after praying. Knowing these things, let us come to God in prayer.