This week I have been thinking about prayer a bit. Prayer can sometimes seem boring, like a one way monologue that we do to be religious. Many of us can feel like God isn't listening, and that there is little point in talking to an omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing) being - we might as well talk to someone who finishes our sentences for us!
God is not merely the best at doing things and knowing things, like Michael Phelps is the best at swimming and Daniel Carter is the best at rugby. God cannot be fully measured, known or comprehended in that way. God is not merely the best at loving, God is love. God is not merely the most just judge, God is justice. And so on.
So, when we love we are not merely doing a good work that God is pleased with, and neither is it only God working through us; it is both/and. When we love (and do justice) we are abiding in God (1 John 2): we are acting for God, with God, by God and in God, and God is acting in us, on us, for us, through us and by us.
So, when we pray we are not merely petitioning God and uttering words to a spiritual being, we are in fact communing (bonding) with God and seeking to abide (have our home) in him: to be part of what God is doing on earth, to have him breathe life into what we are doing - to live in the presence of his Kingdom.
Thank you to all those pray-ers out there who sustain us all at OBC in our ministries and missions, who lovingly set aside time from their days to seek the will of our loving Father in Heaven and abide in him. Please continue to pray for us.