What is the point to ask God with real faith if he doesn't, at least at times, reply to our pleas? But then we must be prepared to do it his way!

I have heard thousands of prayers, in public and in private, and so, I have offered my share of prayers as well.

And in trying to find a word that wraps up most of these prayers, other's as well as my own, the word 'habit' comes to mind, or perhaps 'hurry', or 'duty'.

I'm sure that God hears and understands, but I am just as convinced that he understands that we don't yearn enough, or don't have faith enough to take time to really reach him.

When I think about all the prayers I have offered up, and all the prayers I have heard others send up, when we obviously knew to ask God with real faith, it's clear that we had all arrived at a point of desperation; the point-of-no-return!

Somehow, deep inside, we know that he is there, and that he will assist us in our times of need. So, when we don't seem to get control of life, health, love, money, career and family, we fall on our knees in sincere prayers that go way past the plaster.

But I'm not sure that God is well pleased with this. Perhaps he wants us to consider that we have breath in our nostrils, and it is, oh, so easy to snuff out.

The world is in commotion, and people need our prayers, but not prayers of habit, hurry and duty. We and the world need prayers of real faith! I wonder how many 'great ones' only reached mediocrity because of prayers lacking faith?

5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. (James 1:5-8)

We should try an experiment. Let's clear one day for the Lord. Let's call it the Lord's day. I suggest Sunday, since most people are of work that day. Let's take time when all the 'musts' are taken care of, and talk to God for the rest of the day.

Talk to him, and tell him that you will not stop talking to him until he reveals his will to you. And he will. He will start by showing you your sins, making you feel a need to repent. Take this opportunity to do this, and enter into a covenant with him to follow his commandments.

This can go on for a while. You will gradually feel how you become more sincere in your heart, and when you are sufficiently purposeful before the Lord, then you will be filled with his will concerning you.

Perhaps you wonder why I know this. I know it because I did not want to be tossed like a wave of the sea. I need to ask God with real faith.