I admit this embarrassed and ashamed, but when tragedy strikes someone I love, inwardly one of the first things I think about is how next time someone asks for prayer requests, I will remember to include them. Although the Bible encourages us as a body of believers to be in prayer for each other, we sometimes we feel hesitant to go to God in prayer first ourselves.
How often do we go to our friend when something we're worried about happens? More often than not we go to them instead of going to God first. I am writing this to encourage believers and remind them of the unique relationship we have and the power of prayer. God wants to know what's on our hearts. He already knows what it is and exactly how everything will turn out. But He wants us to tell Him.
When we communicate with God in prayer, we have the supernatural experience of feeling Him reveal things to us and being still to listen. When was the last time you just listened for His voice? The Bible does encourage us to have others praying for us and for each other. In Colossians 2:3, Paul writes, "At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—."
He is perfectly capable of prayer himself but instead he asks others to be involved also and praying for his behalf. However, God still wants us personally connecting with Him through prayer. In 1 John 5:14, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." God wants us to confidently go to Him regardless of what it is that's on our hearts. In conclusion, we need to stop being the people who say, "someone should pray about that." and stop and be the ones to come to God ourselves.
Our relationship with Him will skyrocket when we add that depth of the relationship with Him when we go to Him in prayer. Jesus commands us in John 14, "Let not your hearts be troubled." When we experience God in prayer, we experience a peace that nothing else on earth can provide. The peace of knowing He is with us and He is a God who hears us. But we can't have that experience if we are always asking other people to do it for us instead.
So I challenge you, if you have been missing out on knowing what a relationship with God like this feels like...stop asking, and start praying. He is longing and begging us to come to Him and pour our hearts out on the floor before Him. He will make our burdens on Himself and feel our pain alongside of us. Our God is a God who hears and understand. He is familiar with our suffering because of the pain Jesus underwent Himself.
