“The Lord confides in those who fear Him; He makes His covenant known to them.” Psalm 25:14
Prayer is a unique experience, and only those who know God experience it. People who worship other gods “pray” but, if we truly understand what prayer is, their prayers are nothing more than talking to something that does not exist.
Christian believers are accused of being exclusive, but what else can we be when the Bible clearly states that all other “gods” are no-gods, and there is only one way to relate to the one true God – through His Son, Jesus Christ? We cannot create our own belief system when we accept God’s Word as the revelation of His truth.
Prayer, then, is not talking to any god. It is communing with the God of the Bible. It is a dialogue, not a monologue. It is the interaction of His spirit with our spirit on the basis of a Father/son relationship. We come to God as His sons, we fellowship with Him as His children and we carry that relationship out into the world to show the world what He is like.
One of the problems in the general Christian experience is that, because we are unaware of the implications of our sonship, we treat God as “Solver of problems” and the “Meeter of needs”. Our prayers, like the pagans, are made up of words describing, explaining and seeking solutions to our issues. Jesus said, “Don’t babble like the pagans,” and “Your father knows what you need before you ask Him.” If we take words and needs out of our prayers, what do we have left?
God does not desire to grow toddlers who are always wanting, and always having issues to sort out. He is looking for mature sons who will understand and carry out His business. Instead of spending all our time telling Him what to do and what we want, He is waiting for us to learn to listen so that He can share with us what He wants.
There is another aspect of this relationship to consider. God longs to share confidences with us but can He trust us? We don’t tell our secrets to people who we know will blab them all over town. We are careful to choose with whom we share our hearts. Should not our Father likewise choose to share confidences with those He can trust to respond wisely to what He tells us?
Jesus is the perfect example of a Son with whom the Father could share His secrets, knowing that He would do what the Father wanted and treat the secrets the Father shared with discretion until the time was right to make His truth known.
It is God’s passion to nurture us into mature sons so that He can show Himself to the world through us. “The creation waits in eager expectation for the Sons of God to be revealed,” Romans 8:19. Let us who are the sons and daughters of God grow up so that we can share His secrets instead of continually whining about our issues.
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