From The Crucible (by Pastor Linda Pugsley)

Sometime ago, someone didn’t want to pray with me because he said he believed it was wrong to pray for yourself. He said because God knew everything anyways, people didn’t need to pray.

I remembered thinking back then that he and probably many others had the mistaken idea that prayer was just some set of questions or “to do” lists that you give God! So wrong, it’s way off the mark!

How sad to think that—prayer is not just “petitions”. Prayer is communing with God; talking with Him, not at Him. It is getting in His presence, sometimes without a word spoken, but a heart-to-heart experience that cleanses and purifies you.

Prayer is getting to know God, on an intimate level, daily, and 24/7. He says to call upon Him; He says He calls us friends and He says you often “have not because you ask not.”

And, by the way, Jesus did pray for Himself. In Matthew 26:39, it tells us Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me…” And what did He end the prayer with, with what we must all do, “yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”  Endure the fire—it’s producing pure gold!

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