Prayer… it may just be the most ignored dimension of our spiritual lives. Let’s face it, for many people, prayer seems like either a waste of time or (at best) a passing effort to exercise faith. Until we recognize that prayer is our heart and gut level response when we recognize the inadequacy of life without God in the picture, it will never be quite what it is supposed to be. We tend to travel the dusty roads of our lives simply trying to make it through, simply surviving another day, week, event, or non-event… forgetting God in the process… or if we DO remember Him, we doubt that He is willing or able to engage us in the midst of our plight or the plight of those around us.
Prayer seems to have become irrelevant to the contemporary lives that we live in the 21st century. We even think that it may not be necessary. We have all we need even if we don’t have all we want… and therefore, prayer is frivolous. We seem to lack an understanding that God is both infinite and personal. We struggle to picture Him accurately and experience His true character. Therefore engaging Him with our exposed souls seems incongruent with reality.
Then life happens… something in life reveals for us that when God is extracted from our day to day lives we are left empty and alone. There is a vacuum inside of us that aches to be filled with something… and we fill it with all sorts of things… even inappropriate things… as long as it medicates the pain… if only for a while. But those things do not truly satisfy.
So maybe I ought to pray? No, prayer is not the answer! God, Himself, is the answer! His character is the saving element for our empty souls. He is actually infinite (able to address the circumstances of our lives and hearts), and He is personal (desirous of addressing the circumstances of our lives and hearts). And prayer… it is simply the honest and raw expression our human condition in the presence of the One who is by definition HOLINESS and LOVE, infinite and personal. He desires our fellowship and our honesty. Therefore, prayer… it just might be a dimension of our lives that would be the most relevant, most important, most worthwhile, least frivolous, most necessary.
Kevin