Praying To The Dark

Often, after we have prayed, we feel that a burden has been taken off our shoulders; we feel all right again. And all is well!

But let's be honest with ourselves. Do we really always believe that God will listen to our prayers and that He will respond. Or is there a harbouring doubt in our mind that perhaps He is not listening. Or He will not respond. Or worse still ... maybe He does not exist at all. And maybe we are talking to a void. Praying to the dark. Talking to ourselves.

Let us for a moment assume that God does exist. Let us assume that He is an Almighty Creator God who loves us and cares for us.

How do you think He feels about our attitude? About our weak faith and trust in Him?

When we pray for something and then doubt whether He will respond or not? Whether He is actually listening or not? And when we take back the problem to ourselves, and try to sort it out ourselves, having prayed and handed it over to Him?

How do you think He feels about that? What does He think about our faith and our lack of trust?

Now there are those of course who do not believe in God at all. Well for them, life is easy isn't it? Because when things go wrong they don't pray to anybody, because they do not believe there is anybody to pray to. So they take the rough with the smooth and everything is OK!

Or is it ... I wonder. Do they also, in their darkest hour, go around searching for a God they don't believe in?

But ... we Christians believe in God. We believe that He loves us and that He cares for us. So let us at least give Him the courtesy to trust Him fully when we hand over a problem or a worry to Him.

Let us trust Him enough to do what is best for us and thank Him in advance for whatever decision and action He takes on our behalf.