HI everyone, it’s Angel again! My dad says that this weekend’s gospel talks about something called prayer. I wonder if prayer is like when I’m begging dad for treats? Maybe, maybe not? Dad says that we should all be engaging in on a daily basis as a part of our faith journey, prayer. He says that prayer isn’t just a part of our relationship with God, prayer IS our relationship with God. But, why do we pray? What is the point of prayer? I asked my dad to explain it all to me, here’s what he told me.

Dad said that when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray as He teaches them, He tells them, “Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you,” (Luke 11:9). But, what he doesn’t say is, seek & you will find what you’re looking for, knock & the door will be opened to you as you want it to be opened. The point of prayer isn’t laying out our demands before God, prayer isn’t giving God His “to-do” list for how He’s supposed to be working in our life.

Dad tells me that we pray, after all, not to change God, but to invite & to allow God to change us. That’s not to say that we can’t, or that we shouldn’t, bring our needs before God. But, that, as we do bring our needs & the needs of others before God in prayer, we do so with a spirit of trust & openness that our Father will provide us, not always what we want, but what we need. The point of prayer is to lay out all our struggles, challenges, needs, wants, hopes, & joys before God who loves us so much & then trusting that He will act in His way & in His time. His way & His time won’t always make sense to us, there’ll be times where we may not understand for a while, if ever, where & how God was working, but we trust in prayer that our God is a God who loves us so much that, no matter what, He will never leave us empty- handed. And though my dad doesn’t give me a treat every time that I ask, I know that he will never leave me empty-pawed either :)