Day 3 • Have a Chat • Prayer as the Foundation of Faith

 

Transcript:

In any relationship, communication is crucial. One of the foundations of our faith is prayer.

What is prayer? It’s how we communicate with God.

When a relationship means something to you, you have no problem spending time and resource on it, because it matters to you and it is worth it. I’ll never forget when I first started dating Melissa, my wife. Our families were great friends but she lived in Canada and I lived in New Zealand, so not only was it a loooooong distance relationship, we also had the time zones working against us.

It was either late at night for me and early in the morning for Melissa or vice versa. But that didn’t matter because we were interested in each other and wanted to talk and talk and talk and get to know each other.

I remember going overseas for work, and back then phone roaming charges where not as cheap as they are now. What I came back to was a mega monthly bill. OUCH! But somehow even with that cost (and despite my love of careful spending that comes with my Dutch heritage), it was worth it because of the value I had placed on the relationship.

Fast forward a number of years, and our relationship is still centred around communication – it is vitally important. However like many things in life, familiarity seems to creep in and, if I’m not careful, communication can go out the window.

In the same way, we need to understand that our faith in Jesus and our relationship with God is built on a few key ingredients being paramount and non-negotiable – prayer is one of these.

Prayer doesn’t need to be long-winded or complicated, it is simply communicating with God.

In Luke 11: 2-4, Jesus teaches us how to pray:

“Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation.”

This is not something we have to repeat as a ritual but an idea of what we can ask of God. Why don’t you take a moment right now to reach out to God through prayer and let Him know what’s going on.

It could be as simple as, “God, I’m not doing well and I need help.” Or “God, thank you for all you have given me.”