The family gathered. It had been a busy day. Finally, they were all together for dinner. Food piled up on the table - steaming, delicious. But nobody ate. Instead, they joined hands, eyes closed and words were spoken. THEN they ate.

        He was crying. Broken, disillusioned by the pressures of his hectic job. He visited a friend. They talked. They sat. Then they held hands and words were spoken to someone unseen but present.

        A group of people gathered at the appointed time and place. They quieted down. One spoke. Then another. None addressed the other. All spoke to a third party. They rose and left.

        In living rooms, hospital wards, jail cells, church buildings, office towers, and bedrooms all across our country scenes like this one play themselves out as Christians engage in the special spiritual discipline called prayer.

        To the uninitiated it looks like a strange form of talking to the wind, or introspection, or psyching oneself up, or mystical meditation and bearing down to pull out all the inner reservoirs of strength one can muster.
        To the believer prayer is much more.

        And it is that "much more" which I’d like to explore with you today. Both this morning and tonight, when we’ll gather for Holy Communion.
        Beginning with that most basic of questions:
                "Why bother praying?"
        When there is so much to do, people in distress to assist, conflicts to be resolved, joys to celebrate, meals to eat, family ties to be relished, schedules and deadlines to be met, tell me honestly:
                "why bother spending so much time with eyes closed and hands folded or spread towards heaven?"

Prayer – Why Bother?

And the first answer is -
        God requires His children to pray.
                He requires it.

Prayer is spending personal time with our Maker and Redeemer, who gave the deepest part of His person, the life of His Son, for us. As we pray, we give thanks to God. We praise God. We worship God.

Please understand, God isn’t first of all concerned with our money or our church attendance or our involvement in this or that charitable work — though they are all very commendable and even necessary things.
        God, who gave His very life for us wants..... US..... OUR LIVES.
                He wants us to give Him the very best that we have - our passion, our love, our attention, our joy, our praise, our thanks.

Why?

Well, look at family relationships.
        Children aren’t first of all concerned with what their parents buy for them or do for them..... no matter what Wal-Mart ads may be saying right now. They, first of all, want to be with their parents.
        And parents - they aren’t first of all interested in how well the children do at school or what kind of a job they manage to hold down - though those are important things. What matters most is that they have time with their children – sharing their love, showing their affection, conversing with them.
                And as much as that is the case between human parents and children even more is that the case between our Heavenly Father and His children on earth!

So - prayer is NOT a quiet time of intense spiritual navel-gazing.
        Prayer is not a spiritual drug, to give us a quick fix or temporary high.
        Prayer is reaching upwards beyond ourselves and hanging on to God.
        Prayer gets us "in" Christ.
        Prayer opens us up to allow Christ "in" us.
        Prayer is the gymnasium, the "health club" if you will, of our personal relationship with the Lord.

Why pray? Reason #1 – God requires us to pray so that we can keep our relationship with Him strong.

There’s more, though.

Reason #2 to the question - "Why bother praying?"
        Pray because you need help to live, and God is willing to give it!
        "Ask and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." (Lk 11.9ff)
God challenges us to storm the very gates of heaven, calling to our aid the presence of His providential aid, seeking His power, pleading for His goodness.

Which, good though it may sound, begs another question --
        "God knows everything, right? He understands my thoughts and sees all my hopes, dreams, and emotions clearly, right? I am an open book to him and my future is in His control....right?..... so why bother??"

Well, look at praying for the moment not so much for what it does to God as what it does to the praying person.
        When we have a need or an anxiety or other concern, and we begin to pray, to turn our attention towards heaven, we become conscious again of the need we have of looking to a source outside ourselves for true strength and peace and security in life.
        Prayer rips open the sealed protective packaging we often prepare around ourselves and leaves us open and vulnerable to the touch of God.
        Prayer reawakens and sharpens the focus of our faith.
        Prayer makes us ready to receive what otherwise we would be too busy or distracted or hardened or lukewarm to receive.
        Prayer softens us.
        Prayer reveals us.
        Prayer trains us.

"The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth."
[Ps 145.18]

Does that mean God ever went away?
No. He has always been present. It is we that wander. It is we that need to return. And it is prayer that brings us back.
        When we are opened by prayer, then when God does answer we are more ready to receive what it is that He provides.
        We are also made more aware of the fact that He does provide, and so are drawn closer to Him.
        Prayer prepares to handle to response of God.

        Does this mean that God will never respond when our prayers are weak, tepid, or non-existent? No. The Scriptures promise that God never slumbers nor sleeps. It also says that however unlikely it is that a mother would forget about her baby - and that so rarely happens - even if that should happen, God will never forget His people (Is 49.15). "See," says God, "I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; [your concerns] are ever before me." (Is 49.16)
 

Why bother praying?

Reason #1: so that our relationship with God can be built and strengthened.

Reason #2: so that God can shape, mould, and train us; preparing us for the things He has in store for us.

There’s a third reason in answer to the question, "Why bother praying?"

The Bible says, "You miss [God’s gifts] because you do not ask God...." [Ja 4.2]
        "....Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full." [John 16.24]

God wants us to ask Him for what we need, and to ask –
        – deliberately
        – regularly
        – constantly

Read with me, please, the following account from the life of Jesus:

        A couple of blind beggars kept calling after Jesus as He entered the city of Jericho, repeating over and over, "Lord, Son of David, have pity on us."
        The blindness of those two was very obvious. Anyone knew what the issue was. So did Jesus. But - check out his response. Asks a question. And notice the question - "What do you want me to do for you?"
        Shakes the beggars right to the core. Brings them right to the issue.
        "Lord," they say directly and fully aware, "we want our eyes opened."

What’s the whole point here? Jesus is saying, "tell me exactly what is on your mind. Talk to me. Ask me. Be with me. Direct. Communicate."
        That is what the Catechism is trying to teach when it says that "God gives His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, asking God for these gifts and thanking Him for them." (Q/A 116).

That is why Jesus said: "....how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to.......those who ask Him." (Luke 11.11-13)

God’s giving
        and our asking
                are inseparably linked.
 

        We wonder sometimes about the difference we see from one christian to another. One struggles along at the bare periphery of the faith while another one is full of drive and Christian joy - filled with a deep sense of the reality of God in her life and living out the life of love and forgiveness of which the bible speaks.
        We see the flame of faith fueled by the Holy Spirit burning brightly in one, and very dim, barely flickering in another.
                And we wonder why.

Here is one answer.
        Not the whole answer, because sometimes there are other dynamics at work. But it’s one part of the answer, in many cases.
        - The one person has groaned and searched and pleaded and opened her life up to God and prayed to be totally filled with the Spirit; to be drenched with His presence.
        - The other has not.

        The South African Reformed preacher, Andrew Murray, wrote "the measure of believing, continued prayer will be the measure of the Spirit’s working in the Church. direct, definite, determined prayer is what we need."
        [A.Murray Intercession]

        When the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, it was in response to..... can you guess??
                That’s right — prayer.

As the Church is engaged in ongoing, deep prayer, so in THAT measure is the power of God unleashed through that faith community.

If you ever wonder why one congregation is alive and vibrant, while another wades in a pool of lethargy, investigate the prayer life.
        If you look down through history at the various spiritual revivals that have occurred, every single one of them has begun with a time of great prayer!!
                Every one!

Prayer and the working of the Holy Spirit in the Church are intimately connected.
        No prayer...... no Spirit...... no power.
 
 

You see that principle at work throughout the book of Acts.
        When the apostle Peter was wondering what God’s will was, he prayed, and was led to preach to the Roman Centurion, and the whole household was baptised.
        When Peter was in jail, the church prayed and he was miraculously released.
        When the Church prayed, the Spirit made it clear that Paul and Barnabus had to be set aside for mission work, and the greatest evangelistic team in the history of the Church began its work.

Why do we need to pray? That’s why!!

Friends, let’s remember one thing.
Heaven is still as full of spiritual blessings waiting to be poured out today as it was in the days of the Apostles.

        God still delights to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.
        Our life and work are still as dependent on the presence and Divine power of God in our lives through the Spirit as they were in Biblical times.
        Prayer is still God’s designated way for His Church to appropriate those powers to break loose into the world.
        God is still seeking for men and women who will, with all their other work of ministering, give themselves in a special way to the work of prayer.

And we today may have the privilege of offering ourselves to god to work in this business of prayer;
        to be the channels for these blessings to be brought to earth.

Let’s pray that God would make all this truth come so alive in us, and real to us, that we will continue to work at mastering this necessary Christian discipline; and that it would be counted by us as the greatest privilege of our Christian service.