(Colossians 1:9) We have not stopped praying.

Life is full of circumstances and situations are often beyond our understanding and control. No one is exempt from the complexities of life. Sometimes the difficult problems are in our lives, and other times the deep troubles are in other people’s lives.

After 45 years of serving God, I still do not understand how prayer works.

I know our prayers do not manipulate God.

I know our prayers are not magic pills.

In some way, our prayers move God’s heart toward the situation or person we are praying for.

Prayer is a paradox of faith: The will of God will be done, but somehow God acts specifically in response to our prayers. Prayer is not irrational, but it is not fully rational either.

Even more perplexing is God places things on our hearts to pray for. The Holy Spirit moves in our hearts to pray for certain people or specific circumstances. Sometimes we do not even know why God is leading us to pray.

In this light, prayer is not simply a human work, it is often praying according to God’s will. And so, prayer is also God’s work. We are partnering with God in prayer.

The two most amazing verses related to prayer is Romans 8:26-27, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

We have two options in life: Either to keep praying and call for God’s intervention, or to give up and turn everything over to materialism and fate.

For Christians the Bible is clear, we are exhorted to never stop praying. Jesus tells us in Luke 18:1, always pray and never give up. The apostle Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, to never stop praying.

Why do we stop praying? It could be that things aren’t changing fast enough, so we give up. It could be that we pray in our own strength, instead of the strength of the Holy Spirit, so we get tired and give up.

The bottom line is we will never be able to figure out how God works through prayer, and so we need to stop trying to understanding everything.

The Bible is clear: We must persevere in prayer.

We must never give up.

We need to pray in trust that God knows best, and is working in ways that we can’t see or understand.

Let’s keep praying, keep seeking, keep knocking!

Let’s never give up!