Why Pray?

12/02/2006

“Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit
and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
Everyone who is victorious will eat of the manna that has
been hidden away in heaven.” Rev. 2:17 (NLT)

Sometimes there are passages in the Bible that we read over and over, but never really understand. As we read through them and try to make some sense of them in our mind, it seems that only prayer and asking our Father what is meant brings any clarity to them. Is that why we are called to pray? Perhaps that’s one of the reasons.

The disciples seemed to have been no different. Even though Jesus was speaking in their language, they seemed to not “get” what He was saying. In Luke 18:31-34, it says that Jesus gathered the twelve disciples around him and told them about going to Jerusalem. He let them know that all the predictions of the ancient prophets concerning the Son of Man will come true--how He would be handed over to the Romans, whipped, killed, and on the third day, rise again. And instead of the disciples “getting it,” Luke 18:34 says: “…they didn’t understand a thing he said. Its significance was hidden from them, and they failed to grasp what he was talking about.”

How willing are we to hear, and then if we do hear something, how willing are we to listen, making us then able to receive the information and understand it?

The Bible is God’s gift to us, every single day of our lives. When we spend time celebrating in God’s Word, perhaps God is enjoying watching us as we discover hidden treasures being uncovered—treasures that up to that point in our lives, have been hidden for just such a time as this…a time in prayer with Him.

Perhaps God enjoys “conversing” with us as we read through His Word and as we ask Him for its meaning? If it were just like any other book, would we do that? Would we feel a need to pray our way through it and involve God in our reading time? Maybe, but probably not to the extent that we can with God’s Holy Word, because some of it just doesn’t make sense the first time we read it through, or even the 1,000th time we read it through. Not until…God’s revelation comes to us through prayer. And when it does, we may exclaim, “Oh, Lord, now I see what You mean by this! You have revealed a great Truth to me! Thank you so much!”

Why Pray? To connect with our Father, to get to know Him, and to allow Him to reveal things to us that have been in His Word all these years, but we never understood. To taste the sweet manna from Heaven that is offered to all of us—our daily bread. These are very good reasons to pray, and only the tip of the iceberg of the gifts that we will discover, when we do pray.

Why not pray? might be the better question!