Fear No Fear

“Deep calls to deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and Your billows passed over me” (Psalm 42:7, MEV). Jesus loves us enough to listen to what we don’t even know we’re saying. We are drawn to the Lord (John 6:44). After we respond, we get into conversation with Him. Unfortunately, most of that can tend to us talking and not listening. Inundating our prayer time with our problems, our issues, and our opinions. Sometimes it even includes begging as we seek to prevent something from happening or cajole God into making something happen. None of that is effective. Effective prayer is communication with God. It should always include worship and grateful thanksgiving for all that God does for us. It should not include asking for our needs, because God has already promised that He will meet our needs (Philippians 4:19; Matthew 6:8). Yes, we should ask for things we want. Yes, should talk to Him about our concerns, ideas, and thoughts. Yes, we should bring our circumstances to Him. But not by begging. By TALKING. And then… we LISTEN. Prayer includes listening. Listening to what He has to say about what we’re praying. To hear what He wants us to do. To find out about His plans and His schedule. Prayer is also for getting to know each other. And the great thing is that it can surprise us. One of the reasons is that we have something deep inside that wants to connect with God. We are made in His image and His likeness. We want to be like Him. We want to be with Him. We crave it, whether we admit it or not. The deep inner parts of our spirit cry out to the deep inner parts of God. And Jesus loves us enough to answer that cry. He speaks to us about His deep things. He invites us into Himself. He seeks to teach us all about His love for us. He seeks to teach us how to love like Him. In our praying and in our listening to Him, we can be very surprised by what pops up. By what we find weighing on our hearts. Our spirits deep-call Him. And He answers. He loves us too much to leave us on read.