Spare Change

On Prayer

Posted by Bryan

We're just slightly half-way through this 40 days of Presidential Prayer. It's been a real rewarding experience. I've been so appreciative of the many of you who have partnered and committed to a daily time of intercession for the sake of our next president, our country, and even the world.

The need for prayer was, to me, never more pronounced in its expression through the tangential discussion of religious topics in the third and final Presidential debate. One candidate expressed a very personal, committed expression of faith, and the other a very PC, universalist one. The leadership of the free world will be the stewardship of one of these two men for the next four years. And so goes our nation.

Yet, prayer does not sweep our nation. The prayer meeting continues to be the least popular of all our congregational gatherings. We reveal more about what we believe about God than we do about our prayers, our pastors, or even our churches by our lack of involvement in prayer.

I don't know how many of you are committed to prayer out there, and that's not meant as an accusation. There's times I get really frustrated with God's people because we're so bad at prayer. I know I've griped about it before, but just for the sake of consistency, I'll do it again...

For me, there isn't many things much more offensive than telling someone, "I'll pray for you," and then not. Using that promise as an empty platitude or as an off-hand condescension is an affront to God and to the person. And I believe we're going to be held in account for every prayer promise and not delivered.

Think about it. You are giving your word that you will intercede to God Himself on someone's behalf, and then either because you are too tired, too lazy, too apathetic, or too busy, or too whatever, you don't.

And don't you know it, too? You know when you've just been lied to with "Well bless your heart, I'll be praying for you." My desired response to that is simply..."Don't. Don't lie about this, please. Because my needs are too real to be left twisting in the wind."

I'm guilty of a lot of things. One thing I try hard not to do, though, is offer promises of prayer that I have no intention of fulfilling. God's Word says we'll have to give an account for every word that comes from our mouth. Yes, I believe we're covered by grace, and no, I don't understand what it means, this "giving account." But I think we will one day again face the audit of the prayers that were never offered, and the effect of our silence.

One way that God has compelled me to be a person of prayer is to not let time erode on the good intent of my promise. The longer you wait, the less likely you are to pray. So one thing I do is, rather than saying, "I'll be praying for you..." I say, "Can I pray for you right now?"

If that's not possible, I'll often type out my prayer and send it to that person. It helps me and it blesses the recipient, to know exactly how I've gone to the Father on their behalf. It's not hard. It doesn't take that long.

And I believe God makes time when you take time to pray. Any time I think I'm too busy, that's the perfect time to stop and pray. Because you know what...when I'm done praying, the job, the responsibility, the deadline...it is still there...it waited for me. I've never once had a prayer pause ruin my day.

Some time ago, God stirred in me a desire to be known as a person of prayer. Not in some fancy, famous way...but in a way that just blessed people. In the sense of if I were to tell you that I'd pray for you, that you knew it and believed it that I meant it and would in fact do it. And I've asked God to affirm in the person's heart and mind when my intercessory prayer was delivered.

And I believe God has answered that.

Not because I'm something special.

Because I'm not.

But God is.

I believe God eager to answer intercessory prayer. And I believe that when we offer intercessory prayer, God blesses the person who received intercession. He blesses them with the presence of His Spirit, and the person knows his need is in Hands of Almighty God.

In all this talk about prayer, I've not even addressed the most amazing aspect of it...here's the super, real big secret about it....

it blesses the intercessor.

I confess, I intercede on the behalf of others because I am blessed when I do so.

It provides me additional opportunities to be at the foot of the Father.

I get to commune with God when I take the needs of others to His throne of Grace.

And I get to forget about me.

Look, I believe this to be true:

Nothing can happen without God ordaining it to happen.

God has ordained to use the intercessory prayers offered today to influence what He ordained before time began.

I don't know how He does it.

But He does.

My mind gets jiggy trying to comprehend it.

But I've seen it work so many times, I can't not apprehend it.

And I'm never letting go of it.

God answers prayer.

And He uses people to impact eternity, in time and space.

I'm no expert at prayer...and I'm not as faithful in it as I would like to be. I do believe prayer is like any spiritual discipline, though. If your prayer is more of an action of worship than it is an act of worship, you'll find yourself more successful in prayer.

October 15, 2004 12:33 PM