Prayer

Something I have learned about prayer in the last year or so is that it is not about emotion.  It's not about what you feel.  All the times I needed prayer the most, the only thing I felt was spiritual sickness, apathy, emotional emptiness.  Excuses for not praying crossed my mind--I could say I was afraid of being insincere, not wanting to open the can of worms that were my emotions, too closely related, as I thought, with my subpar spiritual life.  But that's not the truth.

The verse that says "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17) does not add any exceptions to that statement.  It doesn't confine prayer to only the purest moments of your life or the nicest sides of your emotions.  I have found that prayer was the most vital when I was at my worst, when my emotions or my thoughts were at their most base, distant, and fearful, when the temptation was there to think my prayers were useless or I wasn't good enough to pray.  When my mind was in a race with my emotions, trying to pray when everything else inside me wanted to embrace negativity and unhappiness.

God answers even these prayers.

It doesn't mean His answer is always my version of "yes," but He always answers.  It doesn't mean my emotions turn suddenly positive, but I know He is there.  Many people try to assert that Christianity is just a religion and God is just whom you believe in.  I can't change their minds, but I can give my own perspective: I "believe" in a lot of things, but I know God is there.

The only analogy that comes to mind is love, especially brotherly love.  You can't explain love, just as you can't explain unselfishness.  You know it when you see it.  Is there any logic, any scientific reason why one person should care more about another person's life than their own?

God is love.