We talked about praying today.  It's one of the most basic practices of the faith so why do we tend to struggle with it?  Maybe you don't view prayer as a problem but it can become an obstacle.  My point is that we often hear or read sermons and such on how to pray.  That is not the issue.  God knows we can always do more reading and thinking on prayer.  One great temptation is to take in the information about improving as we pray yet feel less adequate to do it than when we began.  A simple act of communicating with God was never meant to get so complicated or intimidating.  Too often we use guilt to get people to pray more but that does not promise that we will pray better.  Jonah reminds me that perfection isn't always the goal as we pray.  Connecting what we say to what we do matters most of all.

Jonah will pray from the belly of a fish.  I do not know when he started his prayer but my money is it took until the third day to get him going.  His prayer in the second chapter is a wonderful one.  There really is not a thing wrong with what he says.  But you also have to put those words in relationship to his overall behavior in the book.  Prayer begins first with God.  It is our response to His activity in our life.  We not only ask Him to do stuff but we also get to communicate with our God.  What happens too much is we let guilt get the best of us before we even get underway.  Guilt will never lead us to a deep connection to God.  It will always nudge us further away from His heart.  Jonah first needs to remember that grace of God which is present tense.  It is that stirring of the soul which leads to his prayer.  When we understand just how deep is God's mercy or love we will gain a far greater motivation to talk to Him.  Don't we tend to enjoy talking to people who seem to care about what we have to say?

Sometimes we just offer up our best efforts with the wish that God hears us.  We lack confidence in bring who we are to Him.  Answered prayers are not the result of a cosmic accident.  Jonah is a long way from being a model believer but he does remember just how amazing is God.  He then builds on both his past experiences along with his present awareness of his God.  Confidence for Jonah results from putting these parts of his life together.  Now we can look both to scripture as well as our process of growth to guide us when we pray.  Don't allow any problem or situation to determine your prayer journey.  God is far beyond whatever may be happening in your world.  Jonah knows how God is even bigger than the fish that took him inside.  His heart moves from the internal organs of the beast to the very nature of God.  This is more than wishful thinking but a concrete reality of God's providence.  He has no guarantee of getting out of that stomach but he reconnects with his God.  That remains at the core of Jonah's prayer.

Just be sure that God does long to hear from you.  Also know that scripture is the record of His speaking to us.  Praying need not make you feel inferior to any other person.  It remains a cornerstone in finding out just how much we mean to Him. 

Bro. Trey