URC Daily Devotion 29th June 2019

That is a very powerful claim. We don’t need to spend time looking for the answer to prayer, because our prayer will be answered. That doesn’t mean that our prayer will be answered at the time we expect, or in the ways that we might anticipate, or even in ways that we can recognise. Nevertheless, we can pray in the confidence that God will hear us.

Perhaps, then, we need to concentrate on discerning God’s will, so that we can get our prayers ‘right’. On the other hand, God clearly knows God’s will and it’s God who will be answering our prayers. Surely, then, what we need to be identifying are the people, places and situations that God wants us to pray about and leaving the details up to God. Yet how often do we ask God for guidance on what we should be praying about?

The other aspect of this is how our prayers will change us and the way in which we respond to people and situations. Is this why we are urged to pray for forgiveness for others? Will that help us to forgive them ourselves and to include them fully in our fellowship? If our first prayer is to ask God what we should be praying about, then our second prayer needs to be to ask God how we can begin to answer our own prayers.