It is an age old question …
Does prayer, does praying, make a difference?
I heard a line in the movie Shadowlands, many years ago, that has become my own understanding and belief for why I pray:
“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.”
Though I cannot find evidence of CS Lewis actually saying those words, Lewis does lead us to a model for prayer: “for most of us the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model.”
It was in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed “my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39). His request, offered up, to his God and Father, was offered up three times, and was denied. This reality of God not answering Jesus prayerful request, is a reality that we must remember, for if God would deny Jesus … we too will sometimes be denied.
Lewis also reminds us, “prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.”
At Gethsemane, Jesus also gives us an example of how to make such a request to God in saying “if it is possible” and “not as I will, but as I will but as you will.” I believe that this is what the author of Philippians is referring to when he wrote, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). We need to seek to have the mind of God as we pray, acknowledging that he is the author of life, that his plan is sovereign.
Even those things that we pray that we think could have only a ‘yes’ response, for it to be the ‘godly’ outcome. I remember laying on a hospital bed, awaiting just one more sonogram. I remember praying that God would allow us to see that heart beat, to show his power, to allow us to praise him for a miracle. The following day, recovering from surgery to remove that heart that remained still on the sonogram, as I looked up to the sky, I tried to gripe and complain to him … about his denial of my request, but all I could say were the same words from Gethsemane … “not my will, but yours”.
I can think of recent times when it seemed as though God was silent in response to my crying out to him. Yet, in the days and weeks and months that past, my prayers were indeed being answered, by other people, who God has used as vessels for encouragement, to meet real needs, to cheer on and to be the hands and feet of him. These people, being our Aaron, holding us up to God, so that the enemy would not have the victory.
God’s mind, his will, is never for the enemy to be victorious.
Prayer makes a difference.
It causes us to acknowledge God’s sovereignty.
It is request … and we have to accept that the response to a request is in the hands of the one we ask.
It is submission to the answer.
Prayer of others, for us, is the support that keeps us from failing, that keeps the enemy from victory.
It is an evolution of our human minds to God’s own mind.
I pray to change me, to change my heart and mind and will, but not change the unchangeable God.
As I climbed into bed, with only the sweet sounds of hubby’s breath, and the waves breaking on the beach outside our window, I whispered a prayer …
As I sat writing (when I should have been preparing for our road trip to our favourite place) the words, “come away with me” kept wafting through my mind.
We have all heard a story similar to this one:
There is something unexpected about a funeral in the summer. The weather is bright and warm. The sun is shining joyfully. Late nights, slow mornings, trips to places near and far, time spent with family and friends … the regular things of life and living get put on hold for the irregular.
itsawonderfilledlife 