Prayer comes from a posture of humility.

‘For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.’ (Ephesians 3:14-15)

A lady once came up to me after a service and told me that she hadn’t prayed in awhile. I asked why, and she answered, ‘Because I prayed that my marriage would not end, and it did. I prayed that my ill daughter would not die, and she did.’ She told me that she gave up on praying because nothing ever seemed to change when she prayed. Sometimes prayer feels as though we’re talking to ourselves. Is God listening?

We can learn much from Paul’s prayers in the New Testament. When he prefaces his prayer with, ‘For this reason I kneel before the Father,’ he is beginning in humility. The words ‘this reason’ refer to the truth about the supremacy of Christ, and it is this which drives him to prayer – not with his own agenda to impose on God, but in submission to the agenda of Christ which he will take upon himself. The value of our prayers is not seen in the fact God responds to what we ask of Him, but in His ability to work in the situations we present to Him. We must trust Him for that and hence we approach Him in humility.

Prayer comes from a posture of humility.

Bible in one year: Psalm 126-128 | Joshua 3