Have you ever wondered why it’s important to pray? Or does anyone really listen to me when I pray?
I’d like to tell you a little about my experience and what the Bible teaches to answer those questions.
A few days ago I felt a little discouraged in my spiritual life.
It was one of those times when you read the Bible and don’t understand, pray and feel that nothing is happening.
Then I read the verses that I am going to share with you today.
They are well known, we have heard them in sermons and reflections.
However, I would like to remember them with you and invite you to apply them, and why not? To memorize them.
I hope they inspire us to pray and approach our loving God with greater confidence.
Let us imagine the prophet Jeremiah being imprisoned in the prison yard, after a long ministry and hard work, tired, with bad news for the king and his people.
In the midst of a siege and treated as an enemy of the nation for having given the message of God.
In the midst of those terrible circumstances, where no one could doubt that God had delivered the Israelites in the hands of the Babylonians, comes the word of the Lord to Jeremiah and after identifying Himself says:
‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’
Jeremiah 33:3
For, even though Israel would be vanquished, God would restore them, forgive them, and rejoice in them.
His God and Lord was willing to show wonders to his people, give them another chance, send the son of God, and certainly fulfill his words.
I like this promise because it invites us to cry out and shows God’s willingness to respond and show us his majesty.
The world today finds itself as Jerusalem each one locked in his home, with the enemy at the gates, with economic difficulties and not knowing what the future will bring.
However, God invites us to cry out and promises that our cry will not remain as empty.
He who was with his people through the wilderness, through prosperity, banishment, and restoration, does not change, his love is the same today and always.
This truth Jesus reminds us in the sermon on the mount.
There, after speaking of the kingdom of God, of the beatitudes, of prayer, of anxiety, he tells us:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8
The father is willing to give good gifts and invites us to ask, to call, and to seek.
If we meditate on the depths of this promise, we can pray with more fervor, with confidence, that the giver of all that is good is listening to us and will certainly give us what we need.
Although, we must not let our hearts be filled with arrogance or doubt, as for every promise there are conditions to be fulfilled.
When we go to Mark 11 and read that Jesus curses a barren fig tree and the next day, this tree is dead from its root and the disciples are surprised.
By now, they have seen Jesus calm the storm, feed thousands, heal all kinds of diseases, etc.
And despite this, they continue to be amazed.
I do not know whether to admire their ability to be surprised or their disbelief of not understanding the power of the word of God.
Well, we are no one to judge them, we act in the same way.
Jesus responds to them:
“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered.
“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Mark 11: 22- 24
In these last verses, we are again urged to ask, but also to have Faith, that little few-letters word that is difficult for us to apply.
A synonym of Faith is trust and, as we know, the more we share with someone, the more trust we have.
That is the same relationship we must seek to have with God.
To know him, to love him, to forgive others as He forgives us, spending time at his feet and thus our faith will grow.
There will always be new mountains to reach, temptations and uncertainty, but we must not forget that our loving Father is willing to give us good gifts.
And what greater gift than his beloved child?
Then we see how John, the beloved disciple, the one who was always in the inner circle and saw Jesus transfigured, records those beautiful words of Jesus in the upper room.
For it was in that place that Jesus spoke to them of the importance of remaining in him.
There he gave them the promise of the Holy Spirit, of his peace.
The promise that only through Him could we reach the father and of how the pain that the disciples would soon experience would become joy and no one would take away that joy from them, then tells them:
In that day you will no longer ask me anything.
Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
John 16:23
Finally, we come to a greater promise, that of asking in the name of Jesus, and the assurance that the father will give anything to us because he loves us.
Already the father gave us Jesus who redeemed us, lived and suffered, knows our needs, thoughts, discouragements, sorrows, but returns and invites us to ask, cry, seek and find.
I hope that every day our prayers will be raised with the blessed assurance that they will be answered because he has promised it and loves us.
Best wishes to you.
God bless you.
Would you like to pray more? Would you like to learn to pray? What is your circumstance? Share with all of us to grow together.
