I grew up with faith in God. It was not always a saving faith, but I believed in God and knew that when you had a problem (or a complaint), it was to God one should turn. My father died when I was 3 years old, and some of the adults in my life told me that my prayers were essential to my father getting to heaven. As a three-year-old, I was motivated to pray. After all, if my father wasn’t going to be with me and my family, he needed to be with God. I knew, instinctively, what to ask for, I knew who to ask, and I knew why I could expect answers.
I needed my dad to be with God, I believed that God was able to meet my need, and I knew He had the power because He was God.
I agree it wasn’t a sophisticated theology, but it got me on my knees. I remember praying at night and sometimes in the back of a church and asking God to make sure my dad made it to heaven. I didn’t doubt. I didn’t try to contact a back up provider. I asked, believing and knowing the nature and authority of Him in whom I believed. These are the essentials of prayer:
Ask believing that the one who is God (and therefore completely able) will answer.
It specifically excludes:
- Prayers of those who don’t believe in God
- Prayers of those who doubt God’s willingness to answer
- Prayers of those who don’t trust in God
- Rote prayers which lack a revelation of the individual heart and need required for relationship with God
I am a little older now, and I am committed to serving God and allowing Him to be the authority in my life. I still pray to God believing that He will answer because I know that He is all-suffcicent and all powerful, and He alone is God and there is no other. I know from my experience in prayer that I may not always like His answer initially, but I know He hears and answers my prayers according to what is best for me.
