Why pray?

Why do we pray?

Mostly, it seems, because we need some help from God for something which

we can’t do ourselves. But this is only a part of praying. Prayer is really

about a relationship with God.

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them about prayer, He started with

the words, “Our Father …” There is a relationship in those words, that

between a child and father. In the early part of our lives we are dependent on

our fathers for provision. As we get older, so we seek the guidance of our

fathers. We respect our fathers and we tend to build a unique kind of

relationship with them. I found in my life that as I got older and my dad got

much older, he became more than both of those relationships … he became

my friend and we developed a very special sense of love between us. In a

way, it was because he began to respect what I was doing with my life and

because he was proud of the part he had played in making me what I was

becoming. And I became newly appreciative of the role he had played in my

formation.

This, in a sense, also exemplifies the development of our own prayer life and

relationship with God. We start off dependent, then we seek guidance and

finally we have this relationship where we are so appreciative of each other

that we like nothing more than simply being in each others presence. Words

are no longer necessary.

This has also been my experience in the 24-7 Prayer Room. Even though I

had been devoted to prayer before my times in the Prayer Room, I found

that I experienced an exponential development of my relationship with God

in the hours I spent alone with Him. For 25 years I had been dependent on

God and was slowly drifting into that part of dependency where I sought not

things from Him, but His guidance as well. Then bang! It was on the 3rd night

of the first Prayer Room – I had done all my asking, sought all His guidance

and I had nothing more to say. It was 2am, I was alone at the church … then

I realised that I was not alone. I sat there with my Father for another two

hours, and we didn’t say a word to each other. It was a turning point in my

life.