This I Believe
This I Believe
Why does prayer matter?
Mahak describes of how her life changed through prayer By JaeMin Lee
M
ahak Sagar was born on November 16, 1999 in New Delhi, India. Raised in a Hindu household, she first came to MCS in her sophomore year. A year went by until the secondary retreat came about, where she accepted Jesus Christ into her life. As Mahak continued to attended MCS, her faith journey took a turn, through many factors. What helped her to know Christ better was her friends whom she hanged out with, her devotional time, worship song lyrics that influenced her, and her mentor, Mrs. Armistead, who helped her know more about Christ. Mrs. Armistead, played one of the big roles as to how Mahak became a mature Christian. She also considers prayer as one of the biggest factors that completely changed her life.
Prayer brought about breakthrough in Mahak’ s spiritual life. This is evident in her experience with prayer before she attended MCS and became a believer. In Mahak’ s old school, when she was a new student, she was really shy and experienced a lot of loneliness because she didn’ t have a lot of friends there. Whenever she saw others with best friends, she would be jealous of them. Later in the school year, a new girl had transferred to her old school. So one day, Mahak prayed to God to let her be good friends with the new girl. Although her prayer wasn’ t answered immediately, as time passed, Mahak was able to become best friends with the new girl. Mahak understood and was surprised how God had answered her prayer. Through the prayer of wanting to have a best friend, Mahak had realized that prayer works and that she should continue praying.
When Mahak came to know Christ in a personal way, she experienced the power of prayer all the more and became closer to God. In her Junior year, she prayed to God for a conclusion to the end of the year; something like what she gained or learned from that year, which is also the first year of her new life with Christ. Then, one rainy night, while Mahak was reading the Bible she was led to 1st Corinthians 13. Mahak believes that God has answered her prayer and through those passages, she learned to love and forgive others.
She wants to share a few tips on how to pray. She says that when you pray, you would want want to greet God and have like a basic talk as you would normally do with your friends. Another thing you would want to remember is to emphasize your needs. Ask God for what you need help with and problems that you are going through. As your prayer ends, you should give thanks for everything God has done in your life. These tips may not be perfect but it is a good starting point in praying.
Mahak’ s story is a living proof that prayer is essential to developing a deeper relationship with God. Prayer can change one’ s life. It changed her life in many aspects, such as the way she acts and the way she judges people. After experiencing God’ s move through prayer, Mahak became a different person. Prayer changed Mahak’ s life from a non-believer to a believer. She is very happy about her life in Christ and how prayer completely renewed her life.
17 Layout by JaeMin Lee