12 October – Mike Gibson. Life Church Petersfield

Heart to heart

Can I ask you a personal question? How frequently do you pray, often… occasionally… hardly ever? Our prayers, to put it simply, are us talking to God and we all do it differently from one another. There’s no right or wrong way to pray, but what IS important is that prayer should be part of our lives. If we say that we are a Christian then it would follow that we have a relationship with our Father in heaven and one way to develop that relationship is to talk to him.

Some of us rely on set prayers or written prayers which is fine. They certainly have their place, but if we only pray those prayers then there’s not much opportunity to grow in a personal relationship. Imagine meeting a friend for coffee and when they arrive you pull out a slip of paper and read it to them which is the sum total of your conversation. Then next week you meet again and you pull out the same slip of paper and read it again. You get the picture, I’m sure. It’s not really conducive to getting to know your friend. We certainly don’t want to encourage that level of relationship with our heavenly Father.

When was the last time you had a good heart to heart with God? When did you last tell him about your disappointments, your dreams, your needs. There’s a verse in the Bible, Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 3 that God promises ‘Call to me and I’ll answer’. I like to think of it as God’s mobile number JER333. Wherever we are or whatever we are doing we can call up God and he’ll always answer – you’ll never get the engaged tone.

So, whether you pray often, occasionally or hardly ever remember to enjoy that heart to heart conversation with God and you’ll get to know Him better with each conversation you have.