Does praying really make a difference? Does God hear our prayers? Does He really care about the details of our lives? We all pray, it’s instinctive; it’s a part of our nature. If we find ourselves frighten or in danger we pray even if the only thing we say is: OMG! Sometimes we pray for more trivial things like finding a parking space or for help finding our misplaced keys. Do our prayers really make a difference? Is God really interested in listening to my trivial prayers?

Sometimes we pray for things that are not so trivial, things that we hope are important to God because they sure are important to us. It’s the friend or family member that is gravely sick and we pray for them and it seems like God is either too busy or there is something wrong with my prayers. Again, does praying really make a difference?

Why should I pray? What’s the point? After all it seems like God has already predetermined what His answer will be, so why should I pray? Does God really pay attention to my prayers? When I pray, does God say, quiet everyone Bobby Jr. is talking to me? Sometimes I think that praying is for people who God gifted to pray, sometimes I think that praying is for the elderly.

As a follower of Jesus I depend more on my actions than I do on my prayers. When I judge my actions I tend to conclude that my actions make more of a difference than my prayers. So then, why should I make praying a priority in my life? I want to give you two compelling reasons as to why I should pray and maybe even more important why you should pray. I’ll give you the first reason today but you’ll have to read tomorrow’s devotional to get the second one. But the first reason and the simplest one is because Jesus prayed.

Luke 5: 15-16 NIV

Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

In the gospels we see Jesus praying often – day and night, and sometimes all through the night. He would pray everywhere He went. In today’s Bible reading we see that Jesus prioritized His praying even above His duties and responsibilities. If Jesus, being the son of God considered praying more important than His duties and responsibilities, then how important should praying be in our lives? As a pastor it’s easy for me to hide behind my duties and responsibilities and neglect praying. But the same is true for everyone, the same is true for the worker, the student, the mother or father. You too will be tempted to prioritize your duties and responsibilities above prayer. But if you were to ask me, why do you think Jesus was so successful? My answer would be, His success was more the result of the time He spent praying than the fact that He was the Son of God. Because when we prioritize talking to God what we are declaring is how much we depend on God and not on our abilities or talents

But I also believe that the more time that we spend talking to our Heavenly Father the more success we will achieve in our duties and responsibilities in life.

When we talk to our Heavenly Father what we are actually saying is, Lord I’m depending on you. And you can never depend on God and lose.

It’s simple, why should we pray? Because if Jesus depended on God so will I.

Heavenly Father help to depend on you more and more each day, just as Jesus was dependent on you for everything, because the purpose of my life is to be more like Him each day and without prayer it’s simply impossible. I thank you that I can come to you with the assurance that you care about every area of my life.