Your Questions About Prayer...Answered

Why must we be persistent in prayer? Do we have to pester God to get an answer?
In Luke 11, Jesus tells a story about a man who dares to knock on his neighbor’s door at midnight asking for bread to feed to some unexpected guests. Jesus implies that the man grudgingly gives his neighbor bread to feed the late-night freeloaders because of the neighbor’s importunity — boldness, shamelessness, and persistence.

Jesus’s point is: if even a grumpy neighbor will give bread to his neighbor, how much more willing will the Lord be to give good things to people who ask for them?!

But Jesus also says that as we continually pray about something, if we let God work in us, our desires can be formed by the Lord to focus on one thing that truly matters: being filled with God Himself — to know, as it says in Ephesians 2, the depth and breadth of God’s love. If we truly know and experience that love, all other desires will pale in comparison to the beauty and wonder of being filled with the presence of the Creator of the universe. May our prayers ultimately lead us to such a divine desire that casts out all fear and removes all guilt.

How can I pray past my hate?
I know sometimes the hurts that have been inflicted on you are truly painful and wound you deeply, which makes forgiveness difficult. Sometimes, reconciliation may not be possible, but forgiveness must be. In such times, ask the Lord for help in healing the hurts, which include forgiving those who have wronged you. As long as unforgiveness remains, the pain of the past cannot heal. God can and will give you the resources you need to begin to forgive. It may take time, but God is patient and will work to melt the hardened heart that the actions of others may have caused.

Now, regarding general animosity toward some group with whom you may disagree or may not like, I have found that if you begin to pray for “those people” (whoever that group is), you will move from seeing them as the “other” to a perspective that they are people too! It takes time and persistence, but, again, God will work in your heart if you let Him, and He will give you eyes to see others as He does — as beloved children. Easier said than done, I know. But the Lord is there to strengthen your resolve to be more loving.

What is Prayer? How can we weave it into our daily lives? How can we make it a part of our family’s life?
The simple answer to what prayer is: any time one becomes attentive to God. That attentiveness can mean opening up our hearts to the Lord as we make our requests and petitions about various things – from finding the ideal parking space, to concerns about family and health, to world events. But hopefully, prayer evolves into a way of being. Praying can make us aware that we are surrounded by God’s grace in every moment of life and that every minute is a gift from our loving creator. So to thankfully see a sunset is to pray. To joyfully hear a bird sing is to pray. To hear the cry of a baby or the pain of the poor is to pray for hurts to be healed and wrongs to be righted.

Developing a disciplined prayer life for yourself and your family is the beginning of evolving into a more attentive way of living. Our Jewish friends showed us a pattern of prayer throughout the day. This practice was picked up by the early church and continues to this day. So find a rhythm of prayer, taking moments throughout the day to be attentive to God.

Doing this with a family may involve praying before school. I remember my parents made me sit down at the breakfast table for a devotional, no matter how late I was running because of my dawdling. Now, I may have missed breakfast, but I was not allowed to miss hearing my dad read the Upper Room.

Praying before meals, even at restaurants, is a healthy way to establish prayer routine in your home. And of course prayers as you go to sleep are a beautiful way to rest in the goodness of God, as you practice dying each night.

How can we align our prayers to what God wants us to be?
I guess the short answer to that is praying the Lord’s prayer! We acknowledge God’s caring nature by calling God “Father.” We then pray for God’s will to be done on earth and in heaven, knowing the first place that it needs to occur is in our own lives. Our Methodist covenant prayer, which we recite periodically in church, is also useful to keep handy, for it is a prayer of surrendering to God’s will, knowing that being in the center of God’s will is the safest place we can be. Here are the words to the prayer used by Methodists since the days of John Wesley:
I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

How do we pray for those who are seriously ill? How is it that sometimes people recover when we pray for them, and other times they don’t?

I read about blind studies showing that people being prayed for have better medical results than those who are not. That may indeed be true, but it doesn’t answer the question being posed.

As I have gotten older and maybe wiser in my journey of prayer, I now pray more frequently that those facing medical hardships or any type of difficulty can be free from anxiety and fear. We can face anything if we are not afraid.

I do pray for people to be made well, but we must also realize that any type of healing is temporary. Even Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, eventually died again.

So, yes, pray for healing and for the wonders of medical science to bring a cure. But, even if those prayers might not be answered in the way you would hope, pray for that person to feel God’s presence and to find peace even in the face of difficulties.

Does that explain why some people are healed and others are not? No, we will not have that question answered on this side of eternity. But, we can give people we lovingly lift up in prayer to our gracious Lord, who promises never to leave or forsake them.

How do we pray for those who are seriously ill? How is it that sometimes people recover when we pray for them, and other times they don’t?

I read about blind studies showing that people being prayed for have better medical results than those who are not. That may indeed be true, but it doesn’t answer the question being posed.

As I have gotten older and maybe wiser in my journey of prayer, I now pray more frequently that those facing medical hardships or any type of difficulty can be free from anxiety and fear. We can face anything if we are not afraid.

I do pray for people to be made well, but we must also realize that any type of healing is temporary. Even Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, eventually died again.

So, yes, pray for healing and for the wonders of medical science to bring a cure. But, even if those prayers might not be answered in the way you would hope, pray for that person to feel God’s presence and to find peace even in the face of difficulties.

Does that explain why some people are healed and others are not? No, we will not have that question answered on this side of eternity. But, we can give people we lovingly lift up in prayer to our gracious Lord, who promises never to leave or forsake them.

Is it ok to pray while I am driving? With my eyes open?
It is always ok to pray! But, please keep your eyes open when driving! I, Pastor Ed, discovered an app called Pray as You Go. Jesuits in the UK produce it, and they do a marvelous job helping someone on the go pray using the Scriptures. It is free, and it is always beautiful to hear someone with a British accent lead a prayer!

Should we pray for and about everything in our heart – i.e. parking space, job, favorite team to win?
Obviously, my prayers for Auburn have done no good over the past few years, so either there are some things so messed up that God can’t even fix them, or my prayers don’t do much good!

Seriously, praying about everything isn’t a bad thing. Why? Because you are communicating with God. And yes, your team may fumble the ball on the game tying drive, or you can’t find a parking space close to the store, but you are talking to God, and that is something the Lord can work with, no matter what the conversation is about. The Psalms show us that we can pray to God about anything, taking all of our emotions — happy praise, overwhelming lament, even our fury. The Lord hears and understands; if we keep up the conversation, God does something within us that maybe will change the tone of our prayers and the focus of our praying.

Maybe instead of asking for the parking space near the door, God will change the prayer into gratitude that one can walk a long distance into the store.

Instead of praying for a victory, we pray for the safety of the players and for our own attitude about sports, which sometimes in my own life, isn’t the best.

Remember, prayer is honest conversation with God. You can bring it all to the Lord. Then, see what God does within your life as you share honestly with the Lord!

Is it always necessary to pray in Jesus’ name?
We Christians often invoke the Lord’s name, not so much as a totem to get what we want, but as a means to ensure that what we are asking for is in line with our Lord’s will. That is what praying in Jesus’ name means.

But some ask what about people of other faiths and their prayers. Well, our Jewish friends have been praying to God for several thousand years before Jesus came on the scene, and their prayers are recorded in scripture as being heard by God. But we also know that God is the creator of the universe and thus all people. So somehow, God hears and responds to the prayers of people that are not believers (and we hope somehow will come to know Jesus!) In our Methodist understanding of prevenient grace, God is at work in the lives of all people even before they are aware of it. This pneumo centric soteriology means the Spirit is moving in the lives of people to cause them to want to reach out to something greater than themselves. And somehow, God listens to those prayers. It is our hope that this process will woo them to Jesus so they can know the joy of being in relationship with Him.

Sometimes, when we do not know how to pray, it is helpful to look at the prayers of the Church, written by godly people throughout the centuries for use in private and public worship. Some of these prayers specifically relate to praying for the nation, our leaders, and how people should treat one another. Many of these prayers petition for peace among the nations and between individuals. These prayers echo Paul in 2 Timothy 2 where he instructs his young protégé Timothy and his church to pray for kings and persons in high places to promote peace, which is conducive to the spread of the Gospel.

Praying for rulers to seek wisdom to foster justice and truth are common themes in historic prayers. This seeking of justice is echoed in the words from the Anglican Daily Guide for Prayer, “let not the needy be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor be taken away.” We are also led to pray for our enemies, following the commandments of Christ, which includes those with whom we disagree so that hatred, vengeance, and cruelty will be removed from our world, our nation, and our hearts.

Finally, I believe we would do well to ask God to forgive our nation for its sins of arrogance, avarice, and disobedience seen in the many ways in which we live together. For the sake of convenience, we have done much to harm our neighbors and our planet. We should seek God’s mercy and empowerment to live more in line with His way of love.

During these turbulent times for our country, ask God to guide you as you see events unfold in the news, so the Lord can teach you how to pray for what is happening and enable you to respond as necessary — with a heart free from anxiety and filled with God’s peace.

Sometimes you will never know on this side of eternity what an answer to prayer might be.  Who knows, when you get to heaven, a person you never met in person might come up to you and say, “Thank you for praying for me.”

And then, there might be times you will know an answer has been given: you get the job you prayed about…or maybe you did not get that job. A person is healed…or maybe healing did not happen. (This is a subject for another question.)

Also, you might pray about a decision and you get a feeling, an intuition, or a thought that you cannot explain — but you follow that leading and end up in a place you had never thought you would be…doing something you thought you would never do. (That is how I ended up here!)

One time, I was praying about making a decision, and my devotional reading for the day seemed to answer the question for me.  (That is why I did not move from here when presented with the opportunity!)

You never know how God will respond. Just be open and believe that somehow God will respond, maybe in a way you did not anticipate.