When you pray, do you ever feel as if the ceiling is an impregnable force on which your prayers merely bounce back and slap you in the face? You wonder if your prayer is being heard. It's an empty, lost feeling.

I've known people that ask how prayer works when they are contemplating accepting Jesus into their life. I think a great way to explain it is by using an illustration of a light switch. How do we know that a light will illuminate when we hit the switch?

Consider how many times a day each of us turns on a light switch without thinking about whether or not the light will actually come on. Can we see the electricity? How do we know that it exists... or even works? Do we doubt if the switch is connected by a length of wire to the light fixture above us? Yet, each and every day, we never stand there looking at a switch wondering if it will work. We merely reach out our hand and flick the switch.

Prayer works in the same fashion. Like a light switch, we don't actually see the connection between our prayer and the illuminating glow at the other end. But, with time and experiential confidence, we approach prayer in good faith that wonderful, electrifying results await us... if we merely reach out our hand and give it a try.