The Power of Prayer

A week and a half ago, we were incredibly dry in Gettysburg.  So, on Monday of last week, I spent much of the day posting songs on facebook that had to do with rain.  “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”, “Rainy Day People”, “Rainy Days and Mondays”, etc., etc.  I called it a virtual rain dance.  And, sure enough, early Tuesday morning it rained.  And Wednesday morning it rained some more.  And Friday night, it rained some more.

So, did my virtual rain dance cause it to rain?  Well, no. I don’t really think so.  But it does bring up a point, which is this:  to what extent, if any, do our prayers change what happens?  Or, to put it another way, can we influence God with our prayers?

There’s no question that we try.  Lots of people have been praying for rain.  When someone we care about is sick, we pray that God will heal them.  When someone loses a job, we pray that God will help them find another one.  But do our prayers influence God?  Does God act differently because of our prayers?

I don’t know.  On the one hand, I don’t believe that God is waiting to hear from me before he plans His day.  On the other hand, Jesus told us that we could pray for the things we want and that God knows how to give good gifts to God’s children.  On the one hand, I don’t think God says, “Well, if Jeff prays for this person to be healed I’ll heal them, but if not, well, too bad for them.”  On the other hand, I do pray in all the situations I mentioned in the last paragraph, plus a variety of others.  I must think something is going to happen as a result of my prayers or I wouldn’t bother.  And the fact is that I truly do believe that prayer has power, and I believe that I have seen God at work in answer to prayer.

The bottom line, I guess, is that there’s a lot about prayer I don’t understand.  The reason for that is that there’s a lot about God I don’t understand.  Maybe you feel the same way.

But here’s the thing:  it’s okay.  We’re not expected to understand everything about God.  In fact, if you think about it, it’s not possible for us to understand God.  If you think about who God is:  the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent, perfect God--the God who can be everywhere at once and see everything at once and hear everything at once, the God who exists at the same time in the past, present, and future--how in the world could you and I, as puny and weak and small as we are in comparison, possibly understand God?  There’s no way.  A god that we could understand would not truly be God.

The Bible never tells us that we need to understand everything about God.  It never tells us that we need to understand everything about prayer.  It tells us that we should pray and that we should trust God.

So that’s what I’ll do.  I hope it’s what you’ll do, too.  Continue to pray.  Continue to pray for the things and the people that are important to you.  Remember to give prayers of thanks as well.  Continue to believe prayer has power.  But also remember to pray the words that Jesus told us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, including these four:  “Thy will be done.”

We can and should bring our concerns to God.  Then, we should trust God, knowing that God knows best, that God loves us, that God is good, and that in the long run, God always wins.  And if we truly believe in God, if we truly trust God, and if we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, then in the long run, you and I will win, too.  Because, after all, the power of prayer is really the power of God.