Prayer makes me happy, and saying such often gets some strange looks. When I was in Indonesia I experienced the power of prayer in amazing ways in bringing comfort, freeing me from anxiety and fear, and feeling connected with the body of Christ around the world (specifically, from my friends and family who were praying).
Those are some of the reasons I love to engage in prayer - I know that we do not wage war according to the flesh, but we have divine power (2 Cor. 10:3-5). What a happy thought to know that engaging in prayer can defeat the enemy. Prayer is a great spiritual weapon by which we can advance, (Eph. 6:17-18).
Prayer also allows us to enter in with the work others are doing (Col. 4:3, 12). When others ask for prayer or we engage in prayer on behalf of another, we are aiding them in great ways - ways we cannot and probably will not see on earth. How much better our delight in heaven to see how God worked, how greater our happiness when we see the fulfillment and know that God allowed us to participate in it?
The early church also showed unity in corporate prayer and God demonstrated power through their prayer in shaking the earth (Acts 4:22-31) and then in freeing Peter (Acts 12:5-17). There's something special about corporate prayer that I have grown to love as I feel it unites hearts and gives me the privilege to hear another's heart for before God. Unity grows. Power that would not come alone is called upon. How awesome.
But I think the thing I love most about prayer is the fact that God listens and allows me to bring all my cares before him. It is an intimate and precious thing to enter into a time of prayer with God, a time when the God of the whole universe listens and wants me to unburden my heart to him - when he hears my cries, concerns worries. He wants it all, he hears it all, he can handle it all, and he answers it all (even if not in ways I like). But to know that I have this continual access and this opportunity to come before my Father who cares, what could be more delightful then that?
Amen! Well put, my friend!
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