Why do we pray?

As a church we believe that the need to pray stems from when Adam and Eve, the first humans, disobeyed God. Genesis 3 describes how they were tempted by the devil, cunningly disguised as a snake, and ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Because they gave into temptation the good and perfect world God had created became tainted with sin which created a barrier between God and Human beings. Consequently, the entire Human race would experience pain, suffering, illness and death in their bodies and there would be jealousy and conflicts in families and wars between nations vying to rule the world.

Sound at all familiar? It is through these everyday difficulties that prayer became and continues to be necessary. Prayer is like having a telephone conversation with God and when we pray, we speak to God and He listens. You don’t have to select from one of the following options or wait in a queue – you are put straight through!

In the Lord’s prayer given to us by Jesus, we ask Our Father in heaven to give us this day our daily bread – to provide for our needs and for others like food and other resources to sustain life and to bring healing, peace and an end to suffering, pain and stress and anxiety. We also ask God to forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us and not to lead us into temptation and deliver us from the evil one. God is sometimes blamed for all the earthly suffering, but God is not to blame. Suffering is caused by all the evil that exists in the world. God doesn’t want anyone to suffer. He loves us and suffers with us. And it is in these times we also pray for His Kingdom to come and for His will to be done. 

Amen. 

Best wishes and prayers, 

Pastor Robert and all at Headcorn Baptist Church.

Photo by Payton Tuttle on Unsplash