But Is It Changing Me

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”  Mark 11:24

I have been praying as long as I can remember.  I first learned how to pray by listening to my dad pray.  We always had a prayer before a meal started, even if we were out at a restaurant.  We also would have family worship time together several times during the week and it always included prayer.  I attended a Christian school as I was growing up and heard many prayers there by my teachers.  And since my family went to church every week, I had even more prayers to listen to and learn from.  When I finally left home I was pretty comfortable praying in a group.  But my prayers were really just a combination of all the prayers I had heard before in my life.  I was a little like a parrot that learns how to talk by listening to the people closest to it.  I had not yet taken ownership of what I was saying during my prayers.

What I hadn’t learned yet when I first went out into the world on my own, was that there is a difference between praying in public and praying by myself.  I had learned how to stand up before a group of people and ask God to bless the hands that prepared the food.  I had learned how to ask God to be with the sick and those confined at home.  I could ask God to help us remember Jesus in the Christmas season.  I knew the words for asking God to protect us until we met again.   Those are all good things to pray about in a group, but I didn’t know very much about prayer that makes a difference in my own life.

Søren Kierkegaard once observed that “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”  I have been thinking about that for a while now and trying to figure out what he meant.  I wanted to dismiss the statement by pointing to places in scripture where great men or women of God prayed for something, and God answered.  But my desire to get an easy answer, the one that would be convenient, couldn’t overcome my desire to get the right answer.  So I have thought about that statement for a long time now.  In the mean time I have continued to practice praying.

What I am beginning to see is that prayer does change me.  I am finding it is hard to be disagreeable with my pastors when I pray for them every day.  I am finding it is hard to ask God for something I want, when I am praying for a friend that needs a job.  I am finding it is hard to complain to God about my sore foot, when I am praying for a friend of a friend that has cancer.  I am realizing that prayer does change me.  I think that this month, my heart is a tiny bit closer to the heart of God than it was last month, and the only thing that has changed is prayer.  I wonder what else God still wants to change in me?  Now maybe that is something to ask for God to give me.

 [PhotoCredit:Dazzie D & It's Holly]