I will admit, I am sitting here stumped, yet quite tickled at God. I was researching prayer for an upcoming Christian Nursing 101 article and pulled out my handy-dandy Christian Theology textbook. Why I have a Christian Theology and a Systematic Theology textbooks is a topic for another discussion–LOL.

Anyway, I looked up in the index and find one entry on prayer entitled: Prayer and Providence found on pages 405-406. The one entry and number of pages are clues.  So I turn to the pages and find 1 1/4 page discussion. Tucked away, almost a side notification is prayer. I will admit, I turned to the table of contents and look for the word prayer. Finding nothing, I return to the index and decide, in my ineptness to look up intercessory. Nope, still nothing more on prayer. This is it. One small section, a 1 1/4 page discussion on prayer.

Part Four: What God Does

Chapter 18: God’s Continuing Work: Providence

-Providence and Prayer

This small section is powerful and quite informative for me and my writing project:

“It [Prayer] is not a method of creating a positive mental attitude in ourselves so that we are able to do what we have asked to have done. Rather, prayer is in large part a matter of creating in ourselves a right attitude with respect to God’s will.” The short discussion continues with Jesus’ teaching found in the Lord’s Prayer, “Prayer is not so much getting God to do our will as it is demonstrating that we are as concerned as is God that his will be done.”

My insight for the day in regards to this discovery is God has provided a means for us to join Him in his plan for our world; and he welcomes us to communicate with him continuously. Even though, at times we make prayer complicated, keep in mind the basics of the Lord’s Prayer taught by Jesus. Through these simple, yet profound words, we can never go astray and loose that priceless connection with the God of the Universe.