Prayerful Thought

We often offer prayers for others. Christians consider prayer to be essential to our spiritual walk. For some, praying is a divine gift which flows like a spring stream. For others, praying is as much of a struggle as walking through thick mud. For some, praying is an emotional event; for others it is mundane and devoid of any sort of freshness or heartfelt awareness. At times, it has probably been all the above. Regardless of our fluency of prayer, it is one of our most important connections to God. We should seek to be prayerful people. However, being a prayerful person does not make us a righteous person. Our righteousness is expressed through our obedience to the word of God, not through our prayerful elucidations. In other words, we can pray all we want but we are severely lacking in a spiritual basis from which to pray if we are not obedient in our lives. It’s like constantly drawing water from a well which contains little water. The bucket is repeatedly mostly empty. To paraphrase the old saying, we can’t talk (pray to God) one way and walk (live) another. The Bible teaches us that those who love God are obedient. Without obedience we don’t possess the type of love which God acknowledges and requires of us. Godly love is required for Godly prayer, and vice versa. Again, prayer is one of our most important connections to God. However, if we aren’t walking in obedience, we might be surprised to find that our prayerful connection isn’t what we think it is.