Enjoying Prayer

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
—1 Peter 4:7–11

Prayer became more precious to me when I started thinking of it as opportunities to have conversations with my Father. Prior to that, my praying was pretty much driven by either duty or desperation. I prayed because I knew I should or I prayed because I didn’t know what else to do.

But at some point, that changed. I grew up, I guess. I found myself looking forward to talking with my Father. I loved hearing from Him, and I learned that He really wanted to listen to me. It was the stuff of real relationship.

Don’t get me wrong, these weren’t casual conversations. I know my place. But even the “hard praying” was far better than it used to be. God still convicted and corrected me. There were still plenty of times that I came to Him dragging a load of anxiety or grief or regret. But what was entirely new to me was going to prayer with the confidence that God was glad to hear from me. He wanted me to pray even more badly than I needed to pray.

Just what you’d expect from a good Father.

During this study of 1 Peter, we’ve been talking about living as exiles—people who have been (re)born to live in another time and another place but who, for a little while longer, reside on the paved, gravel, and dirt roads of planet earth. It can be hard, really hard, to live so far from Home. But prayer, more than anything I know of, closes the gap. It makes the living conditions for exiles a lot easier to bear.