Have you ever been shaken up by the words someone has spoken to you? Shaken up in a way where your perspective changes, or you see someone or something in a new light? Maybe what shook you up most, were who the words were coming from…someone you least expected.

This recently happened to me. Little did I know, as I was going through my list of contacts last week, that I would talk to a couple who would shake up my perspective. Specifically, I was talking with a couple we had worked with this past summer. It was a pretty standard check in phone call in a lot of ways. I wanted to see how they had been doing since the summer, how the project wrapped up, if they needed anything moving forward, and ideas of how to continue to partner and work together. During this call, they continued to share their gratitude and thank us for the partnership this summer. During this call, I continued to discredit myself. Then they shared something that changed my perspective. They shared something that encouraged and built me up when I least expected it.

“Change the way you look at prayer.”

Sometimes we hold back in prayer because we think we are a useless case to God and assume He won’t listen to us anyway, or are deceived in thinking our prayers are too small or simply won’t work. This couple didn’t hesitate to combat these ideas: “you’d be wrong about all of that.”

They encouraged me to reflect on the way Jesus taught us to pray. They emphasized how it’s time we stop feeling too inadequate and too small and too disconnected to pray in the bold way He taught us. We have to learn it and believe it:

“Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”

God’s got you in the palms of His hands. Trust Him enough to pray like you mean something to Him.

Because you do.