How Prayer Works

I saw this meme on Facebook the other day that had a little girl who asked for "Frozen stuff" for Christmas, so her parents gave her frozen peas. She was not amused.

I think that it initially caught my attention because the little girl has red hair, and I automatically run to the aid of any red head under oppression.

But then it occurred to me that a lot of people think prayer works this way.

"What if I say the wrong thing?"

"Never pray for patience. You won't like how God answers."

"What if I tell God to do whatever He wants with my kids, and they end up getting hurt?"

"What if I tell God that I want His will, no matter what it is, and then I don't like it?"

It's not just young or immature Christians who think this way. When I was in high school, a speaker at a youth retreat told us, "I prayed for a wife for years, but then I heard on the radio that asking God for a wife means that I'm asking God to give me someone else's wife. I started praying for a woman to marry, and then I met my wife."

I wish I were kidding. Not only did he believe that God couldn't differentiate between his actual desire to get married and a sinful desire to have an affair with a married woman, he heard this explained on a Christian radio broadcast.

It really isn't just about prayer methods. How we pray reflects how we view God. If we see Him as our Father, our words and phrases take a back seat to honest conversation.

If you have a child or work with children, you know how hard it can be to understand what their little mouths are trying to tell you, and you know how hard any good parent, caregiver, or teacher is willing to work to understand them.

Today, a friend of mine re-posted this memory of a conversation that she had with her three year old foster son two years ago:

"I'm glad I can find the logic in a sentence like 'When my finger is broken and the toilet is harder hurt and I can't do like a diamond in the sky, what happens?'

The translation is: 'I smashed my finger in the toilet seat and think it's broken. You asked me to wiggle it (apparently like the motions to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) and it hurt.' He later added 'I will have to go to the big doctors house and you will come with me?'"

If my precious friend is willing and able to work that hard to understand her foster son, can't we believe that our heavenly Father is just as willing to hear our hearts, even when our words don't quite make sense?

 How does prayer work? Prayer, at its heart, is a matter of trusting that God is able to anything that He desires and that His desire is ultimately for His glory, which is our good.

Our God isn't waiting on us to figure out the correct terminology before He blesses us. He isn't holding out on giving us His good gifts until we get the wording just right. He wants us to talk to Him with love and respect, like a child would speak to a good Father. Because that's what He is, a Good Father.