I am a pray-er. I pray often, every day. Sometimes the prayers are long rambling discourses that address issues of this world I live in, and include everyone I know and many people I don’t know.
Sometimes the prayers are short, stunted exclamations of my love for God, or “Oh God, thank you” or “God, please help them” when I’m watching news coverage of, say, a natural disaster. Does He hear these prayers?
In the Old Testament, God (or one of His angels) often appeared to and spoke directly with His servants. In the New Testament, Mary had an angel visitor who told her not to be afraid and that she had found favor with the Lord.
I want an angel to visit me and talk to me like that. I long for confirmation that I have found favor with the Lord. (Well, not with a virgin birth.) I want God to come and sit with me under one of my oak trees and make me breakfast and speak to me directly like He spoke in those days.
But I don’t think He communicates with us like that any more; I think He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit within us.
Often when I’m praying, a strong feeling will overcome me that urges me to be still and listen. Like a dog, I cock my head and pay attention, even though fleeting thoughts are difficult to catch, like smoke. I wait. And I focus on “quieting my soul within me”.
And a thought, an answer, pops into my head, seemingly out of nowhere. It seems as though these moments, these precious ah-ha moments, are whisperings of the Holy Spirit within me, answering my pleas. But there is distrust if the “answer” seems to be too much in line with exactly what I wanted.
How do I know whether a stirring is the work of the Holy Spirit within me or the work of my own fertile imagination? How do I know that God hears my prayers? How do I know I’m not just wasting my time?
I have my faith in things unseen; I do believe in the power of prayer. But is there evidence? Does God still work miracles in this day and age? Does God still answer prayer?
