Prayer

Reflection by Rev. Douglas J. Guthrie

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    A friend asked me the other day what he should do about an old friend of his who left the Church and even quit believing in God because the person’s prayers “weren’t answered.” OK, let’s look at prayer.
   The first issue we have to consider is this: if God really is all-knowing (omniscient) and all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-loving, then why do we need to tell Him what we want? He already knows, right, and He’s going to do whatever He wants, so why tell Him what He already knows? Why do you tell your family and friends that you love them — don’t they already know? Of course they do. You tell them you love them to maintain and to grow the relationship. It’s your way of reminding them (and yourself) that you value this relationship, that you are working on it and that you want them to know that.
   It’s not any different with God. We need to talk with Him, tell Him our needs and wants and fears and hopes, and we need to remind ourselves that we cherish this relationship and we’re going to keep on working at it no matter what. We don’t pray because God needs to know, we pray because we need to know that He knows. And here we see the true miracle of prayer: the more we tell God about what we need and want, the more comfortable we are with Him — the more we sense He is listening and understands us — the closer we feel to Him, and the easier it is for us to understand Him, even if He says “No” to our prayer. See, prayer doesn’t change God so much as it changes us! The more we talk with God (and remember, the definition of prayer is “talking with God”) the closer we feel to Him and the better we understand Him. Then, without realizing it, we change. We become better people simply because we are closer to Jesus Christ than we have ever been before.
   You know, some people work painfully hard to change their lives for the better: to lose weight, to overcome some addiction, to be more patient or soft-spoken. They struggle long and hard, and find themselves in a vicious cycle of succeeding and failing. Well, guess what: you and I cannot change ourselves! The best we can do is allow Jesus to change us with His love (grace). When we grow closer to Him through prayer, fasting and almsgiving we change without realizing it because we cannot be close to Jesus and be mean or bad or ugly. That’s how to over-come any bad habit — get closer to Jesus, and we’ll see the bad habits fade away as we grow deeper in love with Him.     
    See, prayer does change things — it changes us. So pray as though your life depended on it.