I’m not enough unless you come, will you meet me here again. All I want is all you are. Will you meet me here again

We have been taught what to say and how to pray but we have never been thought why we do it. I have known about the power of prayer but my knowledge wasn’t based on my own experience. In Summer 2017, I would understand to whom I pray and why I can pray.

As my story unfolds, I realized the themes of good praying were hidden in the story of praying for a friend: Helplessness, Relationships, Repentance, Asking, and Hoping. It was clear and it didn’t take long for me, in the desperate situations I faced, to discover the power of God through prayer. It’s a prayer birthed under pressure, squeezing the coal of our heartache, grief, and desperation into the diamond of genuine faith that moves Heaven. It can be triggered by a disappointment or a sudden revelation of hope, an unanswered prayer or a promise freshly received, the consequences of a past failure or a miracle that lies just over the horizon. It’s a plea for something you intensely long for that you know will take place, but has not taken place yet.

Scriptures describe all Christians who came before us not as those who never saw trouble, but as those who cried out to God in their crises. The men and women we remember as models faced the greatest times of trouble and days of distress. And God heard their cries for help. He was not deaf then nor is he today to the voices of his people, however great or humble, especially in crisis.

Paul E. Miller said, “John Piper have reminded us that the best gift God can give us is himself. But “ask nothing of God” is disconnected from life. Imagine a husband who really loves his wife. He is attentive to her needs. He listens to her heart. He is her best earthly gift. How would she react if he said to her, “Don’t ask me for anything. I’m your best gift.” The husband’s love for his wife is not disengaged from responding thoughtfully and generously to her requests. If we separate our mundane needs (doing) from God’s best gift, his loving presence (being), then we are overspiritualizing prayer. If we ask nothing of God, we are left adrift in an evil world. Such a position may feel spiritual because it seems unselfish, but it is unbiblical because it separates the real world of our desires from God’s world” – that is praying for His Kingdom to come.

Our God is not just the God who speaks but also, wonder upon wonder, the God who listens. When James calls us to be “quick to hear” (James 1:19), he calls us to be like our heavenly Father. We have a Father “who hears prayer” (Psalm 65:2), who attends to the voice of our pleas (Psalm 66:19). Our God not only sees all people, but sees his own in a special way, as those to whom he has covenanted himself in love. He hears his people with the ear of a Husband and a Father. He is not bothered or annoyed by our petitions, especially not in trouble and distress. We have a Savior who is in touch with the real world, who prays that he will not drink the cup of his Father’s wrath, who cries out on a rough wooden cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27: 46). Jesus neither suppresses his feelings nor lets them master him. He is real.

To be honest, every time I pray I am not gripped by that kind of intensity and compulsion. Sometimes, however, there was no other way I could pray: my mom’s healing and recovery from stage 4 cancer and dad’s comfort and peace. These prayers are not just an outpouring of heartfelt emotion and passionate pleading. It is an outpouring of heartfelt emotion and passionate pleading based on God’s Word as we hold Him to His promises.

Unanswered Prayers

Why We Pray

Answered Prayers

I believe in miracles (since you came along)