Why prayer??

Jesus says, "Ask."

How can He ask me to ask?

Why??

What difference can it make?

After all, who are we talking to, if not a sovereign; God? He answers to no one.

I've always tripped up on that predestinational thing, you know; that everything is set out before us by an all-powerful, selective, all-knowing God. How can I even begin to pray when I already know that I never know what is truly best?

When I was a college student and had just freshly turned over Lordship of my life to Christ, my counselor Kathleen told me: "prayers are like adding a rock to a pile, and as you pray the pile gets bigger and bigger, and then God can't ignore it." While I agree with the timing for answers to prayer that she indicates here, I wonder if there isn't something missing in that point of view.

We know that prayer is not a work. No one can evoke God out of obligation. Not even prayers in the name of Jesus Christ evoke answers by sense of obligation, but as a gracious gift in a promise.

But we also know that it is clearly commanded! Jesus spent so much time praying to God--again, why?? He was already God, to boot. But just in the example, prayer must have done something important to cause Him to spend so much time in it.

I have been getting the notion for awhile that prayer is submitted to the factor of *relationship*. Our prayers are somehow perfectly not being answered until our hearts have been purified in the request, and not being answered until all of those around us that we see and who see us, are also perfectly aligned to see the answer. Would it really be best for me to get what I ask for, at this moment? Or, would it turn into something rotten and fall apart because I am still too spiritually immature to handle it with sobriety?? God knows the perfect timing. God knows the perfect timing for when an answered prayer will not increase animosity or disbelief for those who see it, but reverence and humility. It's all about the glory of God. He somehow, amazingly, orchestrates all of us together perfectly so that we can be there with the right frame of mind at the right moment. I am absolutely confident in my experience of this phenomena.

So if answered prayers are all about the relationship, then what new can I see in His command to "Ask?"

Are there not times that we are being confronted by God's askings? Another words, there are the times when we are in His shoes, in the sense of making requests.

David makes the prayer in the Psalms:

"Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting." ps 139:23-24

The Lord said, if you love me, follow me. He was asking us, for something, something very important to Him.

Yes, He does have a heart.

Hasn't he asked us for many things? Does He not want to see our love... by our choice to give Him what He asks for?

Just like I want to make a difference to God's heart, He wants to make a difference to my heart. The Lord wants me to see how meek and generous He can be, maybe even as David said: "See if there be any offensive way in me."

We are both talking to each other like persons who are really alive, exploring and learning and testing. I can learn so much about the faithfulness and kindness and forgiveness of Christ, simply by being brave enough to ask Him for the things my heart needs. And if you think about it, wasn't God also brave when He made requests for His important values, too?

"The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain." gen 6:6 Yes, He asked us for His important things and we did not answer Him with any "Yes"s. I am so grateful that God is the better guy. He won't do to us what we did to Him.

And knowing this, I can be even excited to pray. To ask Him for the things I really, really need. And trust Him. Because He will answer them perfectly in accord for the heart in my request. Whatever will encourage me on to trust Christ, this is how He will answer my prayer. Because He wants to show me Himself, and show Himself in me to others. That's relationship.