Thinking God's Thoughts

"Prayer is thinking God's thoughts after Him - thoughts that will always be heard and answered." (Thabiti)


The last chapter of Thabiti's book (What Is A Healthy Church Member?) calls a healthy church member a prayer warrior. It discusses what prayer is and what to pray for, etc... Prayer is hard. Some people will just throw out a cry for help "Pray for me!" when they didn't study or when they're on a fast ride at 6 flags (that's me). People who haven't necessarily put their faith in Christ pray when life gets hard.

I really liked the idea that prayer is thinking God's thoughts after him. God is sovereign, in control of all, and knows what we will pray about before we even think about it. And if we pray in the Spirit as we should, it's really God enabling us to pray to himself (which is awesome). But... if God knows everything, why pray?

God doesn't need your prayers to help him decide what He's gunna do in your life. However, we need God and prayer shows our dependence on God. Prayer isn't an avenue to make God change his mind or to help him make decisions. It is a privilege for God's children to have access to talk to our Father anytime!

"Christianity isn't a solo sport and prayer is not a trip through the Burger King drive-thru, where we shout into an inanimate receiver, wait and few moments, and then receive the bag of goodies we ordered to 'have it our way.'"

I think it's cool to find prayers in the Bible, particularly David's Psalms or Paul's letters. God tells us what to pray for! It's a different perspective to think of God being omniscient and instead of just knowing everything and letting us figure it out, he decided to give us an opportunity to talk to him. It's interesting that he knows what he's going to do, but he still tells us to talk to him about it. Then he answers! We can find the request and the answers in Scripture.

God knows what's going to happen, tells us to pray, tells us what to pray for, how to pray, and answers our prayers. It's all about Him really. Prayer changes us and our relationship to God.

I'm thankful God hasn't left us lost without any direction in His word or any comfort through prayer. He didn't leave us to figure out life on our own, but tells us to talk to him constantly about everything and everyone. It's comforting that He does know everything and when we're ready, He'll reveal himself.

"Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving." Colossians 4:2