Prayer

Do you believe that God answers prayer?

Well, if you’re Christian—and many of the people who read this blog are—you must. And I don’t mean “you must” as in “well surely if you’re a Christian you must believe that God answers prayer”. I mean “you must” as in you don’t have a choice; you have to believe that God answers prayer. You might have quibbles about the whens and wheres, but as a general principle, you can’t call yourself a Christian and not believe that God answers prayer. If you don’t believe that God answers prayer, but you think that you’re a Christian, you need to take a good hard look at your faith.

Even if you’re not a Christian, chances are you believe that God answers prayer. There are some atheists out there, but in general, most people believe that there’s a God, even if they don’t know much about Him, and given that there is a God, most people believe that He probably does answer prayer. They may not think that He answers prayer all the time, but they do believe the general sentiment that He answers prayer.

So it’s funny how people like me, who are definitely Christian, sometimes get surprised when God answers one of our prayers.

Case in point: I had a meeting on Thursday, which I had been dreading for days in advance. Every time I thought about it I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach, and wanted to quit my job just to get out of it. But I prayed constantly, and of course, it was fine. This is a great example because it’s not even that big of a deal; so I thought the meeting would be bad, and it wasn’t so bad. So what? The only reason it’s important is that sometimes we lose faith that God will hear our prayers even about such small things.

I’m going to have a pretty bad couple of weeks, at work. The fact that God answers prayer, even for the little things, is a huge comfort. Because work has been so stressful, I’ve been reading Revelations, which is a great reminder of the fact that God is in control of everything.