Living Water
July 2, 2025
Peanut butter and jelly, bat and ball, sweet and salty, day and night, pen and paper – these are all examples of perfect pairings. If you’re like me, it’s hard to imagine one without the other! Another perfect pairing – prayer and church!
The author, Don M. Aycock, wrote in his 2006 book, Prayer 101, that 75% of Americans polled believe in prayer. Based on the popularity of the Praying Hands emoji, I can believe this. A question for me is, WHEN are we praying?
Do we pray as a last resort when all else has failed or as an immediate response to need, despair, gratitude, and love? When do you pray? Does it matter? Jesus tells us, “…For your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Matthew 6.8
Perhaps what matters most is WHY do we pray? I like what the authors Boring and Craddock say about prayer. “Christians pray as an expression of TRUST in a God who knows our needs before we ask. Asking then is not a matter of informing or manipulating the deity, but of ALIGNING ourselves in TRUST and ACKNOWLEDGING our need.” We pray because prayer is faith in action!
So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. These words are found in Luke 9-1. They are a powerful statement of fact that rests wholly on the act of prayer, faith, and the love of God, our Father.
I am grateful to be part of a praying church!
Minister Billie Dreher