Why do I pray?

I have to say that it’s very challenging knowing the hurt and pain and struggle that some are going through and have gone through. It’s hard wanting to make sense of the “why” behind a lovely and kind person ending up with alzheimers and dementia, or a parent losing a child, or a young child with a painful chronic disease, or a brutal and senseless murder, or ongoing child/domestic abuse, a beloved spouse getting a scary diagnosis, etc.

This world can be so ugly and painful in ways where I have no ability to fix it or make sense of it personally. But He encourages me to pray constantly (1 Thess 5:17), and in every situation (Phil 4:6). Jesus modeled intentional prayer for us (Mark 1:35), and promises that the Father gives good gifts to those who ask (Matt 7:11). The best gifts are not shallow or selfish, like money or fulfilled desires — but are things like unexplainable peace that washes over someone in deep turmoil and grief, patience to endure burdens heavier than we could bear on our own, kindness to see others in pain and seek how we might lighten their load or encourage them, faithfulness to hold out hope even when we can’t yet see the victory, self-discipline to stick to it even when it feels like it’s useless and meaningless.

I used to not think much about anybody other than myself (in fact, I’m still like that when I let myself run on “default settings”). But I have made this miraculous claim (that I fully believe, and that I believe my life over time begins to reveal more and more) — that Christ lives in me, and that I am being conformed more and more into His image.

It is such a miraculous claim that seems so egotistical and absurd (that the God of all time and creation would even know of me, care about me, and choose to save and use me) that you would think that I would have to be the biggest narcissist and judgemental religious bigot to make such a wild claim — yet, it instead humbles me horribly.

When I see someone living cleaner than me that makes no such claim of being powered by the Holy Spirit of the Living God — it leads me to deep repentance where I must rely on God as my strength to wash me and to heal yet another part of my heart (that has been working against myself and against yall and against His beautiful will). When I see someone making the same foolish mistakes I have made myself, it inspires me to not just see an enemy who had hurt me or others, but to remember that through the cross and risen Savior I am seeing the same victory that they too need — that we are not at different levels of need or of worthiness or of glory — that we have all fallen short of the glory of God.

Thank you so much when you encourage me, my friends. I just have to say 100% that you seeing any good in me doesn’t make me feel better about me, it just puts me in more awe of how the Father will turn ashes into beauty, mourning into gladness, despair into praise (Isaiah 61:3).

We all need to be prayed for, and we all need the act of prayer to do its work within us — to draw us closer to the Father and to His will. Amen.