Today, St. John gives us one of the boldest promises in all of Scripture that: ‘If we ask anything (in prayer) according to His will, He hears us and we know we’ve obtained what we’ve asked for.’ That seems like we’ve won the lottery, and we have, but only if we submit ourselves to how God, prayer and faith works, which will be our lesson today.  Appropriately we start with the lesson first things first.  What happens before we pray-before we form a single word in prayer? God hears. Prayer begins not with our voice, but with God’s.  Eugene Peterson puts it beautifully: “Prayer is answering speech. The first word is God’s word. (in the beginning was the Word). Prayer is always a response because we are never first, never primary.”