“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Matthew 21:22)

There are many verses that talk about prayer in the Bible. And some of them, when taken out of context, may give us the idea that God is like a genie: He is there listening to our requests in order to grant them. And it obviously isn’t true.

Praying is not telling God what you want Him to do. It is listening to God to know what He wants you to do. (Click to tweet this quote)

The Easton’s Bible Dictionary has a beautiful definition for the word “prayer” (you can check the entire article here):

Prayer is converse with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him.

Prayer is a conversation, a direct talk between you and God. You talk and you listen, God talks and God listens. He does his part, every single time. Now we need to do ours. We need to talk to Him instead of sending a list of demands, and most of all we need to listen.

Prayer is the most powerful tool we have, not to make our wishes come true, but to know God, to build a relationship with Him.

He has already revealed Himself to us through the Bible. Now, we need to reveal ourselves to Him.

I know that He knows us better than we know ourselves, but the fact is that we need it! We need to reveal our deepest fears, our insecurities, our failures, our shortcomings, so we can open up and let Him into our hearts. We need to learn to trust Him. And praying is the way to do it.

And talking about prayers, you may ask what makes a prayer work, what makes it successful.

In my opinion, a successful prayer is not the one that is granted, but it is the one that gets you closer to God, that deepens your relationship with Him. (Click to tweet this quote)

These are some of key elements to a successful prayer:

• believing that God is listening and that He cares;
• believing that He responds (and sometimes the answer is ‘no’);
• trying to find out what is the will of God (listen!);
• submitting to God’s will no matter what.

Sometimes we just believe that He will do what we ask, but we forget to listen, and we forget to submit to His will. We say the words, we ask for something, but we also need to let it go. Leave it in the hands of God, for He will do what is best.

Prayer is so important in our christian life, but we need to keep in mind what it is all about: knowing God and establishing a relationship with Him, not just asking for stuff.

So, do you want to say something to Him? You don’t need to wait. There’s no better time than now. Just go ahead and do it.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. (Ephesians 6:18)

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (Colossians 4:2)