No Appointment Needed
Published Apr 17, 2026
By: Amanda Popp
I overheard a woman telling someone that she had talked with the Lord
that morning. He said “oh, yeah. That’s good.” She replied. “Yeah, he said to
say HI!”
I admittedly laughed when I heard her tell him this. Let’s be real it
sounds bizarre, funny and deeply profound all at the same time.
Her simple response made me pause, too. How often do I treat prayer
as something formal? How often do I feel like I need to be Goldilocks “just
right” to come to the Lord in prayer? Or how often have I ever told someone
God says “hi”?
Because prayer doesn’t have to be complicated at all. God wants us to
come to him just as we are. We can be having the best day ever, he wants us.
We can be having one of the darkest days we’ve ever felt, he wants us. We
can be having an average mid sort of day, he wants us.
The theme is? He just wants us. He wants us to communicate with him.
I struggle often when praying about finances. Well, rather, I am
struggling because I am NOT praying. I find myself fumbling with my words.
I don’t know WHAT to say or HOW to say it. I write down what we owe and where it is owed to. I stare at the numbers and wonder how in the world it
will work out. I cry. I re-write the numbers and stare again. It is a cycle, until
the Lord quietly reminds me that I don’t have to have it all together to come
to him. That things CAN look impossible when we don’t have our focus on
Jehovah-Jireh, God provides.
It doesn’t escape me that we are talking to the literal creator of the
entire universe, that can feel sort of scary. Maybe it feels like we don’t have a
“big” enough prayer to come to him with. Maybe it feels like we can handle
it ourselves. Maybe we just don’t want to go to God with it. Maybe we want
to try it before we go to God, so we don’t have to bother Him.
We need to be like David in the Psalms, though. I call on You, God,
because You will answer me; listen closely to me; hear what I say. Psalm
17:6 We can call on God, in prayer, because he will answer us. Listen to us.
Hear what we say. God wants to hear from us. In 1 Thessalonians it tells us to
“pray continuously”. Not whenever we feel like it, but always. Philippians
tells us to not pray about some things, but to “pray about everything”.
God doesn’t need a complex prayer from us. We don’t have to have
some sort of formal exchange with bowties and ballgowns. We just need to
say “GOD! I need you!” “God, it has been awhile. Hi!” “Thank you, Lord!”It really IS that simple. Us humans put expectations on prayer that aren’t even
there. We don’t need an overwhelming formality, we just need to show up.
And when we show up, it gives God big spaces to show up and show off the
God he is and promises to always be. That is the undeniable fact of me
overhearing that conversation.
Hebrews 4:16 Let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so
that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.
Read that. Read it again. We can (and I would argue that we should) approach
the throne of grace with boldness. God’s throne of grace. What then will we
get? Mercy and we will find grace to help us. The “at the proper time” part
can be hard to trust in, because we want it to be when WE want it to be. BUT
we can trust that God’s timing is the best. We just have to keep walking the
walk. We have to trust that God IS God and even if things look different than
what we would plan to happen, His plans are always perfect and good.
I left out a word in the above verse. The word is THEREFORE. It is
always good to ask yourself this question when you see that word “what is
the word therefore, THERE FOR?” I would be failing you if I failed to
mention why it’s there. We simply have to scoot back a verse and find the answer: For we do
not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. The
One being Jesus. He’s our high priest. He was tested in every single way we
are and sinned. NO! It does NOT say that. It says “yet without sin”. We can
come before our perfect Savior with boldness, knowing he has been there.
He’s been tempted just like us. He can sympathize with us in our weaknesses.
We don’t need to call his secretary and set up a time with him, there’s
no appointment needed. We simply need show up and call on HIS name. We
need to remember that the God of the Universe isn’t checking his watch or
his appointment book to see who is next. He’s just waiting there, ready to say
“Hi!”
