One of the most amazing differences between
talking to each other and praying to our Father in heaven is that our heavenly
Father “knows what you need before you
ask him.”[1]
Some people take that as an excuse to not
pray. They reason that, if Father already knows what they need, why ask him for
anything?
What became so clear to me this morning led
me in the opposite direction. The fact that my Father knows what I need does
not motivate me to be quiet, but to talk to him all the more!
One of my lifelong frustrations is when I
want to tell someone something very important to me, but as soon as they think
they understand what I’m trying to say they indicate that I can stop talking
because they get it. I realize that for them it is only about the information,
so once the information has been communicated, there is no need for further
conversation about it.
What I see in my heavenly Father is that
prayer could never be about communicating information since he already has full
knowledge of what I need. In fact, the data he has about what I need would be
like a whole library compared to the tiny little prayer I would have used to
describe whatever I’m going through.
So, if prayer is not about giving
information to our Father so he knows how to help us, prayer MUST be about all
about relationship.
In other words, the fact that Father keeps
inviting us, and urging us, even pleading with us, to come to him in prayer, is
this most amazing gift because he is the one person in our lives who needs ZERO
information about what we are going through and yet HE is the one who keeps
telling us to tell him what is going on!
What has this done for me this morning?
It has opened my heart to my longings in an
extremely encouraging, hopeful, and uplifting way because my Father wants me to
talk to him about everything even though he already has all the information.
That means that I am the reason he wants me to pray because he wants ME to
attach to HIM.
I certainly do not need to pray for
Father’s sake, as if it helps him figure out what to do whenever I tell him
what’s on my mind.
No, prayer has to be for my sake, not as
though life is all about me, but that it is Father’s gift to bless his children
with relationship with him. As I treat Father as the supreme Lord who is sovereignly
ruling over both the spiritual and material realms, discovering how deeply
personal he wants me to be with him is almost too remarkable for words.
And yet it is right there in every
exhortation for me to pray. In fact, in contrast to people who would gladly
reach the end of a conversation with me because they kinda knew what I was
going to say before I started, Father’s own words are, “pray without ceasing”.[2]
The fact that my heavenly Father wants me
to pray without ceasing when he already knows everything I need is the most
mind-blowing gift of grace I could ever imagine. He wants ME.
And so, the fact that Father knows
everything about me means that prayer is his gracious gift to bring me to him
and enjoy the delights of knowing him. It still feels almost unthinkable to see
things this way, and yet every invitation to prayer in God’s Book says it is
so.
© 2019 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)
[1] Matthew 6:8, as Jesus introduces
the Disciples’ Prayer of Matthew 6:9-13.
No comments:
Post a Comment