This is a question Oswald Chambers asks in his classic devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. I thought his reflections on this were insightful and helpful. Here are a few nuggets:

“It is not part of the life of a natural man to pray. We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a man is born from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.”

“We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.”

“Give Jesus Christ a chance, give Him elbow room, and no man will ever do this unless he is at his wits’ end. When a man is at his wits’ end it is not a cowardly thing to pray, it is the only way he can get into touch with Reality. Be yourself before God and present your problems, the things you know you have come to your wits’ end over. As long as you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.”

“It is not so true that ‘prayer changes things’ as that prayer changes me and I change things…. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man’s disposition.”

 

 

©2014 Mark Mitchell.  Originally posted at marksmitchell.com