Don’t Base Your Prayers On Feelings

In our culture today, we have become me-centered, even in our prayer lives. It seems like we are encouraged to listen to our feelings, allowing our feelings to dictate our relationship with Jesus Christ. The foundation of our relationship must be our trust and faith in God, not based on our feelings.  When grandparents invest in their relationship with God they are investing in the spiritual lives of their children and grandchildren.

Prayer is the expression of the human heart in conversation with God, a dialogue between two persons who love each other. The more natural the prayer, the more real He becomes to us. As we align our hearts with His will, we will be able to pray with confidence, knowing He will answer according to His plans and mighty power.

The purpose of prayer is not for God to give us what we want, but to open our hearts, focusing our minds on Him, yielding ourselves to His higher purpose, so His thoughts will become our thoughts.

Eugene Peterson writes in Answering God, “To pray by feelings is to be at the mercy of glands and weather and digestion. And there is no mercy in any of them . . . we need more than our wants and whims to grow in our relationship with God. We need revealed truth.” ₁

When praying for your grandchildren ask God to shape their character according to His Word even if it requires some struggle. Ask God to give them a soft, teachable heart and a love for God’s Word so they will grow to be men and women of God who follow God wholeheartedly and share the gospel with the world.

By Lillian Penner

₁ Pray! Magazine, Nov./Dec/ 2008 issue, page 32, published by The Navigators.