Prayer as exercise of faith.

When you face difficulties, it is tempting to ask God to eliminate those difficulties, but it is not that God must step in and take away the pain. It is, instead, God’s presence that enables the pain you may feel emotionally, physically, or spiritually to be addressed in such a way that there is a new level of comfort that is known and felt. You are, in a sense, praying for balance. It isn’t taking away the difficulty; it is adding to your ability to feel some comfort in the presence of the difficulties that you face.

In effect, then, the exercise of prayer as being a measure of faith is one of strengthening who you are and not, by definition, removing what you face. You are lessening the impact of what is being experienced because you are glimpsing, even for a few moments, a light, a light that assures you that you are loved. Exercising faith is therefore a kind of balancing act, but the balance that you achieve in exercising faith only comes when you are vulnerable enough to be open to that strength.