1997-11-05 - Prayer

The Okay to Doubt Series, Part 4

We know that some good measures for dealing with doubt are (1) praying our very doubts to God, (2) remembering earlier times of closeness to God, and (3) fellowshipping with Christians who are strong in their faith. Today we will discuss prayer in more depth.

When we pray, God wants our honest gut feelings. The Psalms provide a good model for this. In fact, many people find that literally praying the Psalms to God, can be helpful when they seem to be at a loss of words themselves. For example, it doesn't get much more graphically honest than this:

(Psa 13:1 NKJV) How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?

As I have said before, God knows what we are thinking and feeling anyway, we may as well tell Him ourselves. ; ) He wants to hear it from us. He wants an intimate relationship with us. Imagine - the Creator of the universe wants us to talk to Him.

Another important point about prayer, is that we need to do it often. And I want to reiterate something crucial: When we don't feel like praying, that is the time we most need to pray! We need to continue to connect with God. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He instructed them to ask for their daily bread, which indicates we should pray at least once a day.

(Luke 11:3 NKJV) Give us day by day our daily bread.

When we are doubting, we need to be persevere in our prayers.

(Luke 18:1-7 NKJV) "Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, {2} saying: "There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. {3} "Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, 'Get justice for me from my adversary.' {4} "And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, 'Though I do not fear God nor regard man, {5} 'yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.'" {6} Then the Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge said. {7} "And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?"

Please note: The Bible does not promise that all our prayers will be answered right away. This indicates that we should sometimes expect to pray persistently. If you are currently in a season of doubt, please take encouragement from this: The faith of most of us is stronger after making it through such a period.

Dear Father, Please help those of us who are doubting, to see Your love and Your movement in our lives. Please use our faith struggles to strengthen our faith, and to encourage others. In Jesus' name amen.

Jan

 cfdevpray@yahoo.com
http://www.cfdevotionals.org

All verses are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) unless otherwise noted.