This
month we are going to explore the mystery and majesty of prayer. At
first we might think of prayer as mainly “communicating with God.”
That’s a good start, but there’s much more to it.
At
its core, prayer involves an ever-deepening relationship with God.
Prayer cultivates a deep desire for God, the kind of longing for God
that Psalm 84 expresses so well. Through prayer we are able to
actually experience the presence of God.
In
the Old Testament, God’s presence was most evident at the
temple—the “courts of the Lord” poetically described in Psalm
84. The temple was God’s “dwelling place,” the destination of
all who traveled on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Notice
that the psalmist describes people whose “hearts
are set on pilgrimage.” This highlights the essence of prayer and
the beauty of how we as New Testament believers experience God’s
presence today. Because Jesus has paid the price for our sin and has
opened the way for us into God’s presence, God is now present with
his people through his Holy Spirit living in us. As a result, every
Christian is now a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians
6:19). So we can experience God’s presence through prayer anywhere
and at any time. God has come to us. He is as close as our own
hearts. To meet with God and grow closer to him, all we need to do is
approach him in prayer.