Prayer is a conversation with God

By Gary Elsten, Pastor
Frankton First United Methodist Church

A few of us were talking just the other day and one of them said that it was such a wonderful feeling to understand that prayer is just a conversation with God. There isn’t any set formula for how to pray.

We don’t have to be sitting or lying prostrate on the floor. We don’t have to bow our heads and close our eyes.  (And I do not recommend this if you are praying while driving!) We don’t have to use some magical words that open or close our prayer.  

Prayer is just our speaking with God and then listening to God. We can tell Him what’s going on in our lives. We can thank Him for the great things that are happening to us.  We can let Him know that we are hurting or searching for answers to a specific question. We can tell Him that we’re anxious or angry or concerned or confused. 

One thing prayer is not: it is not a time just to drag out your wish list as if God is some genie in a bottle that will grant us three wishes. God is so much more than that.  Yes, you can take your requests to God, and we should take our requests to God. He is the one who can grant our requests.  

However, as in any conversation, we should do more than make requests.We should start our conversation with Him by praising His being: His power, strength, wisdom, might and certainly, his love. We should confess where we might have messed up in our lives and ask His forgiveness and for His strength to help us resist that temptation the next time. We should thank Him for what He has done in our lives, what He is doing in our lives and also what He will do in our lives. All these we do in addition to sharing our requests with Him.

Finally, we need to sit and listen. Once we’re done talking, just sit and listen. Try and experience what God is telling us. We will never be able to hear His answer to our prayers unless we sit and listen and expect to hear Him.