We are not alone

When we pray, we are not alone.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all involved.  And even the angels have a hand, carrying out God's will for us.

Sometimes, we feel ignored by God and by everyone else.  But we are wrong.

We know from scripture that Holy Spirit is constantly praying for us.  The apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:26: "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans."

The Spirit prays for or deepest needs, needs that we might not even be aware of.

The Bible also tells us that Jesus speaks for us in heaven.  He intercedes for us before the Father to assure him that he died for our sins (Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25, 1 John 2:1,2).

And the apostle John informs us that if we pray according to God's will, the Father will grant our request (1 John 5:14,15).

So, what am I to make of unanswered prayer?

First of all, I can be confident that God is not withholding something good from me.  He wants to give us good things.

Jesus says in Matthew 7:11: "If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him."

That suggests to me that God does not give us things that he knows would be bad for us - even though we think they are good.

Secondly, God may give us answers to our prayers - but not until much later, even after our deaths.

We read in the Book of Revelation that prayers of believers are saved up in heaven and will be answered at a time of God's choosing in the last days of the world as we know it (Revelation 5 and Revelation 15).

No, I cannot say that God has turned away from me or has gone on vacation because he has not given me what I want. 

I admit it's hard to believe that when I,  or my family and friends, are going through hard times.

Yet David declares unforgettably in Psalm 139:

"Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast."

Yes, God's eyes are always on me and his ears always open to my voice.

Cop-out? Or not?

Is it a cop-out to tag "if it by your will, Lord?" onto the end of your prayers?

Some prayer warriors would argue that it is.  They would say you aren't very confident God will say "Yes" to your prayers.  And there isn't much chance that God will answer positively.

Yet, scripture clearly teaches that we can only count on God saying "Yes" if our prayers are according to his will.

The apostle John writes in 1 John 5:14-15:

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him."

Still, I understand why some pray-ers would say that it sounds as if we aren't sure God will like our prayers  by throwing the words "if it is your will" in front of them.

So, the key to me is to pray and search the scriptures to discover God's will in matters that really concern us.  Then, we can pray boldly.

I need to do this consistently myself.

The great prayer warrior George Muller took this approach in the many years he ran orphanages in England without once begging for funds from other people.

He would take to God the issues he was grappling with.  He would ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate his mind as he read the Bible looking for scriptures that applied to his prayer concern.

He would also talk with mature believers whose opinions he respected.

Then, when he discovered scriptures that indicated God's will on a particular problem, he would pray them.  Those scriptures, the confirmation of the Spirit, and the agreement of mature believers all combined to give him assurance that God would say "Yes" to his request.

The results were many miraculous answers to prayer.  In the early years, the orphanages did not have enough food to feed the children as the day began, but anonymous funds would arrive in the mail to cover the exact amount needed to pay for the day's groceries.

Cleddie Keith, pastor and author of Praying the Lord's Prayer, adds another important point: "Real prayer is something God puts in your heart as a desire first."

He points to the psalmist David's great words in Psalm 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord; and he will give you the desires of your heart."

"When I truly delight myself in the Lord, the desires that begin to form in my spirit are a gift from God."

Keith, who was then a youth pastor in Houston, Texas, and his senior pastor prayed together for God's kingdom to come to a poverty-stricken and crime-ridden sector of the city decades ago.

"When I prayed for His kingdom to come, He gave me his desires," Keith writes.

He says we should check whether our prayers are more about our own desires than God's.

After fervent prayer, Keith approached the principal of a local school to ask if he could conduct an assembly with the student body. To his surprise, the principal, a professed agnostic, agreed to a 30-minute assembly.

He brought in a Christian band which happened to be touring at the time and they played and sang Christian songs that the kids understood.

A young girl ran down to the front of the auditorium and pleaded with Keith for help.  No invitation had been given.

"God broke through, and for the next forty-five days heaven came down into the hearts of young-people in that inner-city public school in Houston, Texas.  We had prayer every morning before class.  The students and teachers met in the lunchroom and prayed earnestly for the student body."

Over 30 years later, he returned to Houston for special services and a young woman approached him who became a believer as a student at that time.  She was active in her congregation and free of drugs that had afflicted her before her conversion at that school.

God will act when our prayers are in tune with his desires.

Praying God's words

When God speaks, things happen.

He spoke the universe into being and Jesus' words changed hearts, foiled Satan, healed people.

Now, many prayer warriors use God's words - his promises and commitments - as they pray for themselves and others around them.

I have been reflecting on this and I believe that declaring God's word is powerful.  Of course, any effective prayer must be according to God's will (1 John 5:14-15).

Kyle Winkler, author of Activating the Power of God's Word, says the Lord's word is "a signature inked in heaven that cannot be annulled but is supernaturally binding and everlasting".

"When God speaks, His Words contain the authority of His majesty, which all creation obeys."

Winkler notes that God has delegated to us the authority to use his words for his purposes.  For instance, the apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6:17 that we are to use the "Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God" in dealing with dark forces active in this world.

"You and I are able to give voice to God's Word so that when we speak it, it maintains God's authority as if He has spoken it Himself," the author says.

Winkler says that he was "excessively shy" as a child and felt "alone, timid, rejected and not good enough".  Satan exploits such feelings in believers, stealing their joy and confidence.

Then, he learned about his "new identity" as a believer - a new person who is loved unconditionally.  Jesus had become Winkler's righteousness.

"Who you are in Christ is made up of the qualities of His image that you get to call your own, simply because of His effort and striving at the cross.  It is the result of His finished work, not yours."

Winkler discusses Satan's effort to derail Jesus by tempting him in the wilderness after he was baptized in the Jordan River.  In each of Satan's attempts, Jesus responded by quoting God's word until the Devil gave up and left (Matthew 4).

"Paul said that we shut down Satan's mind games by taking negative thoughts captive to God's Word," he writes.  "In other words, if Satan says 'You are worthless', replace that thought with the truth of God's Word . . ."

He suggests several steps to transforming our thinking - begin with the correct truths from scripture; declare the truths aloud; act upon this truth;  and return to this truth whenever we fail until it becomes a habit.  Then, our character will change.

Winkler says he changed as he applied scripture to his life.  His growth "depended on a consistent, daily habit of speaking God's Word, not an occasional emergency dose".

As Jesus told Satan when he was tempted in the wilderness:

"It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"