Prayer: Heart to Heart with God

Our September theme for the Today devotions, written by Peter Hoytema, is “Prayer: Heart to Heart with God.”

How do you communicate with your best friend, or with your spouse or children? Your quick answer to that question might be: “Well, in many ways! It might be notes, texts, or social media posts. But an important way is to talk and listen to each other directly.”

That’s what prayer is: intimate communication between God and his children. In prayer we praise God for who he is and what he has done in our lives. We confess our sins before him. We bring our needs and the needs of others before him.

Our writer for September puts it this way, “Prayer is how we speak to God, worship God, and respond to God’s blessings. Prayer is instrumental in helping us grow as Christians, and it builds relationships with other people as we pray with and for each other. Prayer plays a key role in extending God’s healing presence in a hurting world. Prayer consists of a genuine encounter between us and God—one that God graciously initiates.”

God our Father earnestly desires that we communicate with him. We’ll learn, this month, why and how we should pray. We’ll learn that prayer is a two-way street as we talk and listen to God, and he talks and listens to us. We’ll hopefully learn how to improve our communication with God as we pray to him and hear from him.

We’ll learn, this month, about the importance of prayer in the life of a Christian as we explore the topic, “Prayer: Heart to Heart with God.”

Peter Hoytema has been a pastor in churches in the United States and Canada. Currently he pastors a congregation in Strathroy, Ontario. He is a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary and San Francisco Theological Seminary. He and his wife have four adult children.

As you read the Today devotionals this month, may you be refreshed, refocused, and renewed in God’s Word!