What Prayer can be! Part IV ...

Thursday, April 7, 2016. Prayer can be simple. Prayer can be very challenging. There are deep promises linked to prayer. Jesus calls his people to prayer, and he promises that God will listen. When you come to God in faith, he will listen! These promises, which you find for example in Matthew 21, 21, can be quite motivating, but also quite disturbing! Why?

Prayer …

First, Jesus promises that God will hear. It is linked to faith, and you will need to think more about what faith means, when you want to understand what prayer can be, and how to approach prayer.

We have to talk about why the promise creates problems. Most of us, who take Jesus serious, have found themselves in the situation where you pray for a problem, but it does not go away. It stays - at least for the moment. Some of us lack a partner, some are ill - there are various types of health problems, others are handicapped, there are problems in the job, in the family, … a lot can go wrong in our life. And usually a simple prayer will not immediately cure all problems, it just does not work like that!

The first thing we have to understand with prayer is that it is God's decision, how and when he will answer our prayer. Definitely, he listens. Definitely, he knows our situation, our problems, our longing, our feelings. He knows it, and he wants to help. Definitely, he want to do good to us, wants to do many fantastic things in our life. Yes, he wants! and yes, when we have faith, he will!

Faith is needed …

Faith is needed, to see the answer of prayer, to see wonder over wonder, to see the mountain move into the sea. Jesus links it to faith, and faith is more than just thinking that God may be there or that he may be right. Faith is our life.

In the bible you hear a story about demons which are with some men (Matthew 8). And they know who Jesus is. They know even what he wants to do and will do. But they do not have faith. It is not just about knowing that Jesus is God, and that all is linked to him. It is about our attitude towards him, about him being our center, our Lord, our God. Faith is what is in our life, what our life is, and how we approach it!

Faith means to trust God, with all what we do and have. What is it that makes us who we are? It is not given by ability or skill, though of course skill and ability is something which we possess. It is not given by action, or by feelings, or by creativity, or by possessions. It is given by the creator and God, by his mercy and love, by him being the one who wants us and who loves us. You need a faith which lets go all the things which bind you, and a faith which finds trust, truth and love in God. And here, wonder start to happen, and mountains start to move! (RWEP) ... more texts