Prayer! perhaps the most confusing, daunting, worrying, intimidating ... and yet VITAL part of becoming a christian!
It is through prayer that we connect with God. Through prayer we change who we are. Through prayer we learn more about God. Through prayer we change the world. It's not a small thing prayer!
In some traditions of the church prayer can be pretty mundane and boring. It can be about repeating long complicated words which you're not sure you understand and you're not sure what good it is saying them. But prayer is not meant to be about boring repetition - it is meant to be about life giving, passionate, exciting encounters with the true and living God.
Imagine someone really rich and famous who had connections to all the really important people in the world had broken down on the roadside and you stopped to help them. You fixed their car or changed their tyre and they said to you "Thank you so much ... as a reward for your kindness and help I'd like to offer you a chance to meet anyone rich and famous that you like. Anyone at all - just tell me who you'd like to spend an hour with and I'll arrange the meeting!" Who would you ask to see? And what would you talk about?
Prayer is like having access to the most amazing, rich, wise, wonderful, awesome person in the whole world, every minute of every hour of every day ... for free!
But imagine too that if you had access to someone like that, you probably wouldn't spend all your time talking would you? You'd want to know about THEM, you'd want to know what they thought about stuff. You'd be mental to get an opportunity like that and waste it by spending the whole time just whittering on, yabbering your mouth off the whole way through. You'd come away without every having found out what that person was actually like. They'd know all about you (and probably have found you a bit annoying) and you'd know nothing more of them than if you'd never had the chance to meet them in the first place.
Prayer is as much about listening to God as it is talking to Him. In fact, prayer should probably be MORE about listening and less about talking!
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Background to the book of Exodus
The Exodus is a MAJOR event in the Bible! There are a few things you really NEED to know about and the Exodus is one of them!
The Old Testament is all about the people of Israel, because God set them apart from all the other races of mankind as HIS people – a special chosen race who would serve Him and whom He would protect.
A Faith which never gives up - and a God who never lets you down. Daniel is a Jew who loves God - the one true and living God. Around him is a whole society, in fact an entire empire which covers most of the known world at that time and it is ruled by a crazy King, Darius, who thinks that he is God. Daniel is a lone voice, quietly worshiping his God, Yahweh, while 99% of the people around him think he's a bit crazy. But because Daniel does such a great job, the King loves him and the people respect him.
In fact the king thinks of Daniel so highly that he has his old name back, the one he was given at birth, not the one he was given by the previous King, Nebuchadnezzar. and Daniel has been appointed to one of the most priveleged postitions in the whole of Darius' kingdom. Daniel is given so much favour by the King that the other officials around him are really jealous and hate Daniel. They want him out of the way and, preferably dead.
As Christians we often talk to people about this mystical thing called "having a relationship with God". But just what does that mean?
If you think about it, having a relationship with someone who is invisible is bit like being 5 again and having a make believe friend. Obviously there isn't really a relationship going on there, just wishful thinking!!! A child might invent their make believe friend to help them cope with life or just for a bit of fun, and it's harmless enough and normally just a passing whim. But as Christians we really believe we're engaging in a meaningful two-way relationship with this God character. So what exactly is going on and how does it work?
The Bible is the manual for life! It's the book written by your creator about how your life should work, how you can keep it ticking along properly and how you can get the most of it.
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