Words Of Hope Thursday, October 1 - a podcast by Cathedral of Hope UCC

The devotion for today, Thursday, October 1, was written by Jonathan McClellan and is narrated by Carly Allison McCullar.

The Power of Prayer

Prayer is not the reciting of a magic spell; it is a conversation with God. Words do not have any power in and of themselves, but when we with sincerity come humbly to God, the Spirit draws near to us because God loves us. Eloquence does not make a prayer more powerful, but God who is powerful makes us, who are weak apart from the Divine Presence, blessed according to our righteousness. If our requests are good, then our Abba in heaven will bestow upon us power and authority. Nothing will be impossible for us because God can do all things.

One does not make demands of an all-powerful Monarch if that person’s life is valued. Consider then, that an earthly king is higher than his servant. Just as a king’s position is the highest in the land, our Sovereign, who is Christ, has thoughts much higher than ours. God does not need our understanding to answer a prayer; it is us who need’s Christ’s understanding to be the answer to our prayer. You may have a plan or a solution, but God knows the right way to solve a problem. With humility, consider asking God to “help” without feeling you have to tell God how to help us, for God’s ways our not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. Remember that God is Ruler over all of creation, who knows what we are going to ask before we speak and has prepared aforehand the best answer to our prayers.

We do not have to come up with long prayers nor do we have to figure out what to pray for. God already knows what we need, and often what we want differs from what we need. You may know what you need, but God knows how and when to give it.

We should ask for the impossible, for God is willing and able to do it, and have the humility to submit to the will of God if things do not go the way we expect them to. Sometimes we have made prayer harder than it has to be.

Further episodes of Words of Hope Weekday Devotions

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