Prayer

Annette (our pastor) preached about prayer a few weeks ago.  She emphasized that prayer is God's way of connecting with us. She said prayer is "the involvement of God.'  I thought the ways she spoke about prayer were illustrations of this idea:

• We are invited to pray (just see scripture for that one)
• God delights in our "asking."
• The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in our prayer - this indicates how much God wants to connect with us
• We are called to seek, find, knock - constant communion with God

Our prayers move us to grow in faith, so much so that we begin to perceive others' needs and to pray for that.  She drew a parallel here the Golden Rule.  Nothing is too small or too large to pray about - to think otherwise is to have a distorted image of God.  In fact, we learn to have the mind of God through our prayer.

It occurred to me as I listened that we judge God (and maybe the effectiveness of our prayers) by what God does in response to our prayers.  Did God answer my prayer? We answer that question through the observation of effect - did what I pray for happen?  We tell others that God said "yes" or "no" and sometimes we make excuses for God.

Maybe what we need to ask instead is whether God was present for us in prayer? We need to ask if our prayers changed us or changed our action? Are we saying "yes" to God's desire for connection? Or are we saying "no?"