In the Garden of Eden, God walked and talked with his creation. Such a natural relationship is still God’s blueprint for our lives, urges teacher, author and pastor Pete Greig.
Pete Greig is a pioneer who believes the power of the presence of God is revealed when we choose to walk with him.
“We’re designed for a living relationship with God,” Pete candidly says.
“Which involves talking to him and listening to him. You wouldn’t think much of my relationship with my wife if we never talked to each other.
“So prayer is the most natural thing. Surveys tell us that pretty much everyone prays – even atheists. We know that children naturally pray, people in crisis will naturally cry out to God.
“Prayer is something very natural, but there are reasons people can struggle with prayer from time to time.
“One can be that they have disappointments; they tried praying and nothing happened. For that reason, we have to be honest about unanswered prayer.
“Often the Church is less honest about unanswered prayer, but when you read the book of Psalms, half of it is lament and even the word Israel means ‘struggle’. We have been baptised into a faith that is fighting and wrestling.
“Another reason people find prayer difficult is because they don’t see the need for it… they feel that if God is God, he will do it anyway. That is simply not true.
“There are things that will only happen in our world if we pray about them. There are things that will not happen in your life until you pray about them. We do have real authority with the choices that we make… you can say yes to someone and be married to them for life, or you can say no to someone and it changes everything.
“That is the power of our choices on a supernatural level too, so prayer really does make a difference.
“The third reason people sometimes find prayer hard is they simply don’t know what to say to God. I always tell people, ‘Keep it simple, keep it real, keep it up.’”
Denne historien er fra February 2017-utgaven av Direction Magazine.
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Denne historien er fra February 2017-utgaven av Direction Magazine.
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