We have become accustomed in our country to appreciate many of our modern conveniences.  You turn a valve and you have immediately available, your choice, of hot or cold water.   Enter a room and flip a switch just inside the doorway and it is flooded with light.  Whether it is summer or winter we return to our homes finding them just the way we need them; warm and toasty in winter and cool and comfortable in summer.  It is when these are no longer available that we sometimes realize just how much we appreciate them. 

Take for example the telephone?  We can pick up either a home phone or even a cell phone, dial a few numbers, and just like that we are talking to someone, nearly anywhere in the world.  All this is possible because of electricity, substations, satellites, and relay towers.  Removing any one of those elements shuts down this capability and for some causing a collapse in their way of life.  You see, we have become dependent on imperfect systems.

Children of God, however, have access to a perfect system of communication.  It is called prayer.  It needs no batteries or electricity.  There are no relay towers to process signals from origin to destination.  No infrastructure to maintain to insure continued service.  Simply direct your calls to your “Heavenly Father” (Matt 6:9) who is waiting patiently to hear from His children with their thanks, praise, confessions, and petitions.  There is a prerequisite to expecting a reply.  You must have a relationship that He recognizes.  Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:12, “…the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Do you pray?  Does God answer your prayers?  It is His desire, for Jesus tells us that if we will but ask, seek and knock, we shall receive, find and have opened for us.  Most prayers offered up are for perceived needs and Jesus also tells us “if we seek first His kingdom and righteousness” all needs will be provided. (Matt 6:33)  Would you miss prayer if it weren’t available to you one day?

Copyright © 2007, Nolan P. Rutter