MAY 22, 2025 ~ FROM A PASTOR'S HEART

MAY 22 DEVOTIONAL BIBLE READING:  LUKE 11:11-13

Do you pray with expectation? When you go to the Lord in prayer do you expect an answer? Do you pray with faith toward God that He will hear your prayer, and He will answer your prayer? I would like to remind everyone that the answer to prayer belongs to God. So often when we pray we come to the Lord with a preconceived idea of what we want, and the only answer that would make us happy. We treat the Lord like the lady behind the serving line at our favorite cafeteria-styled restaurant. We tell Him what we want and expect Him to fill our plate with only the things that we have decided. Most of the time we don't leave room for anything else, nor do we want anything else. In prayer, we are promised an answer from our Heavenly Father...but we are not promised to get everything we want. The truth is, we ought to be glad that we don't always get everything we want. In prayer, God privileges us to come into His presence, seek His face, ask for His will, and in faith know that our Father will answer our prayer with what is eternally best for us.

The Lord intends for our prayer time with Him to be very intimate. We get to come into our Father's presence and spend time with Him. He always gives us His undivided attention and He is never distracted. He actually hears not only our words, but He hears our heart. And He always acts in our prayers, responding with what he knows is the best. In a faith-based prayer that's what we want. For we know and believe that there is nothing better than God's best. In prayer we not only get to ask, but we get to listen. For our Father has some things He wants to share with us. He desires to speak His life-giving words into our lives. He wants to share who He is and what He wants to do for each one of us. His response in prayer will always be a response in love. What a great gift the Lord has given us in prayer...a great gift from a great God!

Please share your thoughts.