Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to Jesus of Nazareth my soul to keep. Well, that’s not exactly how the childhood prayer goes, but in all practicality it is how many Christians subconsciously pray when they are praying. Talking to Jesus, having conversations with Jesus, and following Him should be common to the life of any Christian. But, praying to Jesus as though He was God: well, that’s entirely something different.

Jesus might have felt He was the coming Jewish Messiah, but He certainly never claimed unique divinity!

Since Jesus was a human, He didn’t pray to Himself, He prayed to God, Abba Father. God doesn’t pray to himself. There’s no need for God to pray at all, at least in our definition of God there isn’t. So, when Mark records (1:35), “Early in the morning, when it was still dark, Jesus arose and going out of the house to a solitary place He spent time in prayer”, He’s not saying that Jesus went there to talk to Himself but to His Father, God.

Tom Harpur writes, “Unless we are prepared to believe that His prayer-dependence on God was nothing more than sham for our edification, a mere act to set a good example, it is impossible to cling to the orthodox teaching that Jesus was really God Himself walking about in human form, the Second Person of the Trinity.”

The depiction in the Garden of Gethsemane has to convince one that Jesus was not praying to self, He was praying to His Father, God.

And then we have the “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” that Jesus cried forth from the cross. From Psalms 22 Jesus is repeating the phrase, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Do you remember that? We can’t imagine what was going through the mind of Jesus while He was hanging on the cross suffering so very much and for so very long, especially after all of the intimate time he had had with Abba Father – God, but then, there’s so much about Jesus and God that we all may never understand.

So, unless God chooses to reveal it to us, we must REST in the faith, knowledge and trust that God is in control and He does listen and answer prayer! We also must trust that God loves us too much to be unkind and that He does have a better plan for our lives which we often will get as a result of constant and feverent prayers!

We all need to be reminded that even Jesus Christ the son of God prayed and He ended up dying but was ressurected because of God’s power and plan for His life, each and every time we’re in prayer and it seems like no matter what, things are either not working or not getting any better!