I Believe God Answers Prayers
If you believe in the power of prayer, would you please pray more?
More and more, I'm convinced that the world would be a much better place if we took prayer more seriously. Prayer is not just a spiritual practice, it's the means by which God changes our lives and changes the world.
Prayer isn't just helpful, it's important.
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Prayer is a responsibility each of us has to bring more of Heaven into this often broken world.
See, I believe that God doesn't just hear our prayers, but that He answers them. I believe God is not just aware of us but that he is deeply concerned for us.
I believe that he intervenes in miraculous ways more often than we think, and that coincidence is often God's way of remaining anonymous.
God is not only real, and alive, he's also at work in our lives. He is "a friend that sticks closer than a brother;" he is an "ever present help in our time of need," and with him "all things are possible."
When I set off to produce my new series Answered Prayers for TLC we scoured the country for stories of divine intervention. Within days, our inboxes were exploding as thousands of people wrote us telling us of the ways in which God had clearly and supernaturally intervened in their lives.
There were documented accounts of people being healed of diseases, stories of supernatural provision, and story after story of people being saved from the brink of death by a person passing by who happened to just have what they needed in their moment of crisis.
I've never been more convinced of God's power and I've never been more convinced that he answers prayer.
My dear friend Victoria Osteen often says that we can think of prayer in one of two ways. We can think of it as a steering wheel that guides our life or we can treat it as a spare tire that we go running to when we need it.
God is willing to be our spare tire.
He will "never leave us or forsake us," and even if we only come knocking when we need something, we will find his hands open and full of love and grace.
Thankfully, when I was a child my father taught me to just go ahead and give God the steering wheel.
He taught me to begin my day by thanking God for life, and he taught me to end my day by doing the same. He also taught me to pray in between for the "busyness of life always threatens to crowd out God." He taught me that "the voice of the Lord will always be there, if you just take the time to listen."
My father's advice has served me well.
We make time for everything else in our lives. We won't miss a meeting or a meal, we schedule time for the gym and tea with friends.
We are committed to what is most important to us.
I'm wondering if we can make more time to pray?
None of us know what our lives might have been had we prayed more.
The truth is that God's probably waiting to answer a prayer – or two -- for you, too.
