Prayer
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Different people define and experience prayer in different ways. The best prayer is the one that gets to the Father, God in heaven and all of them (prayers) do get to Him, as long as they are directed to Him in the name of Jesus and by the enabling of the Holy
Spirit.
For me, prayer is about conversing with God characterized by worship, praise and thanks giving. What I like about prayer being a
conversation is that God speaks back to me. I know you may be asking, “How does He speak?” The answer would result in another
book but for now, I would recommend authors like Bill Johnson (book entitled, Dreaming with God) and Perry Stone among many
others. To answer the questions briefly though, I would say that if you read the Word of God, the conversation with God will
happen as long as you open your heart and inner ears. God’s first language is not English or Japanese or any of our normal
languages. He speaks in and through everything or anything. For example, let’s go back to Jonah. He pouts and then begins a
conversation with God in Jonah 4:2-7:
So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know
that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please
take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be
angry?” So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter
The hearts of people are
and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared
important to God and that
a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery.
should be our approach when
So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and
dealing with fellow human
it so damaged the plant that it withered.
beings.
At the end of this experience, God’s message to Jonah was communicated by a plant; and
the message was that the hearts of people are more important to Him (God) and that should be our approach when dealing with
fellow human beings.
- Whale Belly Experience -