Why prayer matters.

Think for a moment about the last crucial conversation you had. What was the topic? What made it crucial—the subject, the decision or possibly the deepening of your relationship?

I communicate with people every day in multiple ways at very different levels of intensity and content. For example, an intense conversation can be with someone who’s dealing with a personal issue or even wrestling with a spiritual matter. Light conversations can bring a ‘breath of fresh air’ to an otherwise boring and inconsequential morning or provide me content for a provocative Facebook post!

Our crucial conversations are intense and sometimes take a lot of time and energy—they can also last for weeks depending on how long it takes for one of us to stop avoiding the CRUCIAL issues. Crucial conversations are interrupted of course, but that interruption gives us time to cool off, get more information and become less emotionally intertwined with stuff that isn’t healthy or wise.

Prayer is a lot like these crucial conversations.

On the other hand, we can mindlessly trod through the ACTS prayer—(adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication). We can tell God we love Him. We can even confess our sins. But we receive no blessing and feel worse than before. We can even wonder if prayer really works at all. So this type of prayer can often sound like this:

     “Dear Lord, you’re holy and awesome! Please forgive me of my sins. Thank you for all you do for me and I will praise you forever, amen.”

Hmmm...not very crucial. Not very defined nor is it specific. No room for intervention from God and no room to actually work on maturing as a Christ follower. Is this the way your relationship with Christ is trodding along—not crucial, not defined and not specific?

Why does prayer matter? Prayer will change your life! But we need to be willing to have the crucial conversations with God and one another. We also must choose to surrender to His leading, apply what we hear and learn to improve our own lives. Specificity is key. We also need to trust God and allow God to convict us. He needs to identify what we need to change and guide us in how to correct our thoughts, actions and behaviors. Too often we insist on our own way and tell Him what needs to be done. See the difference?

We begin the Lenten Sermon series Sunday—Amen! We will actually focus on the Lord’s Prayer for the entire month of March. Yes, we know Jesus prayed. His disciples noticed there was something different about Jesus’ prayers. So, they asked Him to teach them to pray. Imagine the crucial conversations Jesus had with the Father and Holy Spirit! (Wow.) I’m also encouraging all of us to fast Mondays and Tuesdays through March. Justin Sommer delivered a great message Ash Wednesday by talking about his experiment with fasting. Yes, we give up something. But we need to also choose what we will fill that emptiness with and devote our time to Jesus. We have big decisions to make about our Wheatland identity and discerning our next steps as a congregation is one of those crucial conversations. Join me. Let’s do this well and give God the glory!

Join me Sunday. Let’s make this time a holy time.

“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 6:6 NIV

Pastor Jen