Why Should We Pray?
Why should we pray? Ask this question to a group of Christians and you will get a myriad of answers. Prayer changes things. Prayer moves mountains. We should pray because prayer will bring us closer to God and will build our relationship with God. Prayer is critical for anything we do because prayer brings God into the picture and allows God to work. Prayer moves the hand of God. Prayer does the things our hands cannot do. Prayer allows us to bring all of our deepest needs and emotions to God. Though all these responses are different, they all have one thing in common. All of them emphasize the importance of prayer, and what it brings. But should we pray only because of its usefulness? Should the importance of prayer be the only motivation for us to pray?
I was reading Henri J. M. Nouwen’s book called ‘The Road to Daybreak’ today. One of my favorite authors, Nouwen has inspired millions of Christians all over the world with his thoughtful and profound words. Though he writes from a Catholic perspective, I find the wisdom, humility and transparency in his writing very uplifting. I have no doubts at all that he is an amazing servant of God. In ‘The Road to Daybreak’, his personal journal in the year that he moved to a community for the handicapped, he wrote about ‘useless prayer’ in one of his entries. He was struggling with the same question – Why should I pray? And this was his conclusion:-
If I believe that the first commandment is to love God with my whole heart, mind and soul, then I should at least be able to spend one hour a day with nobody else but God. The question as to whether it is helpful, useful, practical or fruitful is completely irrelevant, since the only reason to love is love itself. Everything else is secondary.
Now who would have thought of that? I spend a lot of time with Agnes. I enjoy spending time with her and talking to her. Why should I talk to Agnes? I don’t find myself asking this question! No doubt that spending time together is important in building our relationship, but is that why I spend so much time with her - because it is important and useful? I talk to her simply because I love her. It is simply because I want to talk to her and I enjoy talking to her. The implications are clear. If I really love God, then I should pray because I want to and because I enjoy it. Whether it is useful or important or fruitful is completely irrelevant.
I was reading Henri J. M. Nouwen’s book called ‘The Road to Daybreak’ today. One of my favorite authors, Nouwen has inspired millions of Christians all over the world with his thoughtful and profound words. Though he writes from a Catholic perspective, I find the wisdom, humility and transparency in his writing very uplifting. I have no doubts at all that he is an amazing servant of God. In ‘The Road to Daybreak’, his personal journal in the year that he moved to a community for the handicapped, he wrote about ‘useless prayer’ in one of his entries. He was struggling with the same question – Why should I pray? And this was his conclusion:-
If I believe that the first commandment is to love God with my whole heart, mind and soul, then I should at least be able to spend one hour a day with nobody else but God. The question as to whether it is helpful, useful, practical or fruitful is completely irrelevant, since the only reason to love is love itself. Everything else is secondary.
Now who would have thought of that? I spend a lot of time with Agnes. I enjoy spending time with her and talking to her. Why should I talk to Agnes? I don’t find myself asking this question! No doubt that spending time together is important in building our relationship, but is that why I spend so much time with her - because it is important and useful? I talk to her simply because I love her. It is simply because I want to talk to her and I enjoy talking to her. The implications are clear. If I really love God, then I should pray because I want to and because I enjoy it. Whether it is useful or important or fruitful is completely irrelevant.
posted by sojourner @ Monday, January 24, 2005
4 comments
4 Comments:
Greetings sojourner I was looking for pray information and I landed on your pages. While Why Should We Pray? was not excatly what I was looking for , I like your blog Great Stuff. I'll bookmark it for future visits. If you have time check out pray , Ok thanks for the read , take care.
Hi sojourner, I was out surfing on the net looking for the lastest info on how to pray. Ok Why Should We Pray? wasn't exactly what I was looking for but it got my attention and interest , now I see why I found your page when I was looking for how to pray anyway I'm glad I stopped by you have a great blog. Thanks for the read ...catch you later!
How ya doing sojourner, Hope you are having a good day. Your this post site is most interesting. I was looking for school prayer related information when I came across it. Thanks for the read. I have a site that may interest you come and visit sometime, school prayer thanks again, take care.
Greetings sojourner it's rather cold here today, but summer is comming to our part of the world soon. I was looking for the latest most up to date information on daily prayer and I landed on your page. Although this post is not an exact match I can see why I ended up here while looking for daily prayer Great stuff thanks for the read.....now where did I put that surf board !
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