Praying When You Don't Want ToMinta

There are moments when I wonder if God really hears my prayers. Times when I get done praying and wonder if it even really made a difference. In my most desperate prayers and quiet moments, I find that those thoughts cross my mind more than I would like to admit. And I know I am not alone! The other day, I was putting my five-year-old son down for bed, and he was struggling with being scared of the dark. I tried to reassure him that everything was going to be okay, but all my words seemed to escalate his distress. So I suggested that since God is in control of everything, we could pray and ask Him to protect us. He turned to me with his eyes brimmed with tears and said, “I try to talk to God all the time like you do, and He has never talked back. You say He is here, and I look for Him all the time, but I have never seen Him.” There is part of his statement that is true. Most of us don’t hear God audibly, and no one has seen God except Jesus (John 6:46). So what do we do in our darkest moments when we need Him the most and it seems like we can’t hear Him or see Him moving? Why should we even pray at all? God has not shown his actual body to us, but He shows himself to us clearly and undeniably through the world he created. Something cannot actually come from 'nothing', and intelligent design doesn't come from no intelligence. We know He exists so clearly because of the world He has created!