The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer. 1 Peter 3:12 (NIV)
If you get frustrated with the commercials on television, you can always press the mute button. Think of it this way: If God sees us acting in a way that is unkind toward the people He has placed next to us, He presses the mute button on our prayers.
It is possible to spend an hour in prayer or a day on retreat and to achieve absolutely nothing of lasting spiritual value. One of our greatest dangers in the Christian life is a false spirituality that separates our relationship with God from our relationships with other people.
We begin to think that spirituality is about prayer and Bible study and worship and being in a small group. Well, these are all good things, but none of them will do any good if God has pressed the mute button on our prayers.
God will never allow us to separate our relationship with Him from the way that we treat other people. Your relationship with God affects the way you treat other people. The way you treat other people affects your relationship with God.
So, keeping the big objective in view, if we are to live in such a way that highly resistant people will come to glorify God, then we need to act redemptively and we need to pray effectively, and that means we need to make sure that nothing hinders our prayers.
Can you think of anything that might be hindering your prayers?
