I’ve often wondered: when I pray to God, does he listen? In Matthew 18:20, Jesus says … “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” When you think about it, as Christians we do an awful lot of praying. Growing up, we are taught how to pray. We memorize the standard prayers until we know them by heart and can rhyme them off at the drop of a hat. But is that praying? When we sit in church or when we are attending a special function such as a dinner or a wedding and we, as a group, say the words that we have been taught to use, is that praying? We say the words, but do we know what they mean? Do the words, many written hundreds of years ago, convey to God what we want him to know about us on a personal level? I wonder.
Imagine for a moment that you and your partner attend a very large wedding. When you enter the reception hall, you find that it’s packed full of hundreds of people. And each one of those people is happily chatting away. The drone of noise would be deafening. If you were to turn to your partner to say something, you would end up having to shout just to be heard.
Now imagine God, in heaven, sitting on his throne of love. Every minute, every second, He is surrounded by such a deafening drone of prayers. And many of those prayers are being said by people who are just reciting what they have been told to say. Prayers that carry no meaning, have no purpose.
I’ve given this a lot of thought. When I pray to God, I want Him to know it’s me and I want Him to hear what I’m saying. I want my prayer to carry a message direct from me to my Creator. To do this, I’ve stopped ‘Praying to God.’ Instead, I’ve started ‘Talking to God.’ At night, in my bed, I take some time and talk to my God, my Father, my Friend. I have found this practice to be very comforting.
I encourage you to give this a try. At night, in the dark, just before you close your eyes, take a moment to talk to God. You might be surprised that he does listen to you.
Dave Huffman is a parishioner at St. Luke’s Church, Smithville, Ont.
Time to Stop Praying to God; Time to Start Talking to God
I’ve often wondered: when I pray to God, does he listen? In Matthew 18:20, Jesus says … “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” When you think about it, as Christians we do an awful lot of praying. Growing up, we are taught how to pray. We memorize the standard prayers until we know them by heart and can rhyme them off at the drop of a hat. But is that praying? When we sit in church or when we are attending a special function such as a dinner or a wedding and we, as a group, say the words that we have been taught to use, is that praying? We say the words, but do we know what they mean? Do the words, many written hundreds of years ago, convey to God what we want him to know about us on a personal level? I wonder.
Imagine for a moment that you and your partner attend a very large wedding. When you enter the reception hall, you find that it’s packed full of hundreds of people. And each one of those people is happily chatting away. The drone of noise would be deafening. If you were to turn to your partner to say something, you would end up having to shout just to be heard.
Now imagine God, in heaven, sitting on his throne of love. Every minute, every second, He is surrounded by such a deafening drone of prayers. And many of those prayers are being said by people who are just reciting what they have been told to say. Prayers that carry no meaning, have no purpose.
I’ve given this a lot of thought. When I pray to God, I want Him to know it’s me and I want Him to hear what I’m saying. I want my prayer to carry a message direct from me to my Creator. To do this, I’ve stopped ‘Praying to God.’ Instead, I’ve started ‘Talking to God.’ At night, in my bed, I take some time and talk to my God, my Father, my Friend. I have found this practice to be very comforting.
I encourage you to give this a try. At night, in the dark, just before you close your eyes, take a moment to talk to God. You might be surprised that he does listen to you.
Dave Huffman is a parishioner at St. Luke’s Church, Smithville, Ont.
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