When you surrender initiative, you make prayer meaningless. It lifts your spirits, but does not influence what God is going to do. God has purposes and will accomplish these purposes, but he develops people who do those things. That is one reason it is hard to get people to pray at church and why prayer meetings are often dead. People don’t see that prayer—real, two-way conversation with God—makes any difference. If you interpret the conversation simply as God telling you what to do, you don’t see the importance of talking with and hearing God.
