in response

Two years ago I stood in my kitchen one morning and prepared to make breakfast for my children.  From nowhere a thought whispered through my mind that I should pray for a new acquaintance who was about to have a baby.  I barely knew her, she and her husband had only visited our Sunday school a few times, but there it was: pray for her, her daughter and the delivery.  So I did.  A few days later I found out she was at the end of her very long labor and about to deliver her beautiful baby girl right as God nudged me to pray.

Ever since then I’ve thought a lot about prayer and its necessity.  Why did God suggest I pray for her that morning?  If He was the one prompting me to do so, if He was the one who already knew her predicament, if He already knew He was going to help her, why did I need to petition Him on her behalf?

As I’ve read the Bible with those questions in mind I’ve come to decide these things:

• I agree that the Lord’s prayer can be summarized in the following way: “prayer as defined by Jesus (not a man), is first and foremost, a recognition of God’s authority over us, secondly a request that our needs to be met. Thirdly, a request for His forgiveness and protection.” (quoted from a commenter on this post).
• God wants us in fellowship with one another, and one of the best ways to love one another (the command to do so is given here and here and throughout the New Testament) and to grow in community is to pray for them.  I have to take my eyes off myself for a while and humbly ask that God take control of a situation that I cannot assist in.  And after I’ve prayed for a person I am more likely to think of them, to be in tune with their needs, so that I might pray for them again or be prompted to act for a need that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.
• Through prayer we grow closer to Him, and as I grow closer to God I will better hear His voice and how He wants me to move in the lives of those who love Him, and hopefully someday in the lives of those who don’t.  That day two years ago all He asked me to do was pray, but a few months later He used me tangibly as I reached out to a friend with some Bible verses; one time I even got to buy a Bible for someone I’d never met before that day.  Sometimes He wants me to pray and sometimes He wants me to act in accordance with Him.
• My prayers will not necessarily change His will, but they might.  There is evidence of that in the Bible (see 1 Kings).  And I know that the prayers of a righteous man are effective (here, here and here).  I am a righteous woman.  Although I am sinful, selfish,lazy–the list goes on–I confessed Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I was baptized, and with His awesome forgiveness He looks at me as righteous and listens to my prayers.  A good deal of the time I pray that His will be done.  But sometimes I ask our loving Lord to please heal someone, to please guide a situation in a different direction if He see fit to do so.
• But most of all as Christians we should just pray.  Pray pray pray.  In all things, give it over to God.  The outcome is His to decide, but He does not turn His ears from those who love Him and seek His will.

It is good to ask questions.  But it is dangerous to do so without seeking answers from the Bible.