Prayer Changes Us

There is a story about a mother who happened to overhear her fifth-grade son’s bedtime prayer. She had gone upstairs to check on him and paused for just a moment outside his room. She heard him praying: “Let it be Tokyo! Please God, let it be Tokyo!” When he finished his prayers, she stuck her head in the door and asked him, “What did you mean, ‘Let it be Tokyo’?” “Oh,” the embarrassed boy answered, “we had our geography test today and I was praying that God would make Tokyo the capital of France.”

Prayer changes things, no doubt. But our prayers are not magic, are they? One of the most important things prayer does is to change us! Prayer draws us into the presence of God. It opens our hearts and deepens our relationship with others and with God.

In his book, The Sign in the Subway, Carveth Mitchell tells about a large sign he once saw on a subway platform that said, “God Answers Prayer.” Someone had scrawled on the bottom of the sign, “Sometimes the answer is NO!”

It is so true, isn’t it?

Mitchell went on to make the point that the purpose of prayer is not to get something from God, but, “to have a sense of God’s presence; to feel the assurance that God is in, around and greater than any circumstance; that, come what may, we belong to him and underneath are the everlasting arms…”

Let us pray: Gracious God, we long to know that undergirding our lives and circumstances are your everlasting arms. We long to know your forgiveness, love, and grace. In our moments of prayer, tune our hearts to yours. And, may thy will be done. Amen.