The Blessing

Let’s move on Abraham, in our journey of learning about effective prayer.  If prayer is dialogue with God, and it is, it seems that when he initiates the dialogue and we listen and obey, prayer is certainly effective! 

Genesis 12: Now the Lord said to Abram, Go forth from your country,

And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”  So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him.

Maybe you’re wondering why I’m calling these types of dialogue prayer.  If prayer isn’t dialogue, then I don’t know what it is.  Most of us pour out our hearts to him in petition and repentance if we’ve wronged someone, and we cry so much that we don’t even hear what He has to say to us.

But so far, in Genesis, we’re seeing that God is initiating conversation and directives to man, and man is listening and obeying.

And awesome things happen!

Who wouldn’t want the kind of blessing God promises to Abraham?

But those blessings required obedience on Abraham’s part.

And those blessings didn’t come without obstacles.

A good lesson for us all.  God does speak, if we will listen.  God wants to bless us and take care of all that concerns us.  But we have to listen to him and follow him.  And even if circumstances don’t look like what we “think” they should, according to His directive, we know that it will all come to pass because he said so.

That kind of prayer (dialogue) is effective, don’t you think?