The Power of Prayer

For a Christian, the word prayer is used almost as much as the name of Jesus. We talk about prayer in Sunday School, in our church services. We have special gatherings on Wednesdays nights devoted to prayer. We pray before meals. We pray before bed. Prayer is so common in the life of a Christian. 

Yet I've been reflecting on prayer a lot lately, and I've come to the conclusion that I take prayer for granted. Oh yes, like a good Christian, I pray every day, multiple times a day. Yet I take it for granted. Rather, I should say I take its power for granted. And to be honest, I don't think I'm the only one who does. 

I taught at my church's VBS not too long ago. I was in charge of the 3, 4, and 5 year olds. What a handful, yet what a blessing. One of the nights, while trying to kill some time before crafts, I took my kids outside to a small hill behind the church. I wanted them to be somewhere where they couldn't see other people. I wanted as little distraction as possible. I had been thinking a lot about how I was going to teach these kids what prayer is. It's so vital to a Christian, and I really wanted to be able to explain it well. I sat them down and asked them the question, "What is prayer?" Of course, being 3, 4, or 5 years old, most of them raised their hand. I have no idea whether or not any of them actually knew what prayer was, but one little girl I called on hit the nail right on the head. "Miss Sarah, prayer is talking to God." 

Let that sink in for a moment. Prayer is talking to God. Prayer is a one-to-one correspondence with the Maker of the universe. Prayer is extremely private. You can have 50 people praying at the same time, yet God is listening to each pray individually. He is giving each person His undivided attention. He is paying attention to you as if you were the only person on the face of the earth. 

Too often, I'm afraid that we overcomplicate prayer. We try to use big words and long drawn-out sentences. We want to sound eloquent. There's nothing wrong with that if that is how you normally talk. God will hear those prayers. Yet that isn't what prayer has to be. Prayer can be fragments. Prayer can be run-ons. Prayer doesn't abide by the laws of grammar. Your spoken prayer can be gibberish, but God still understands because He sees what is in your heart. He is able to look past the five-syllable words and see the simple cries of your heart. He doesn't need a dictionary or thesaurus to see the meaning behind what you are saying. He already knows. 

Sometimes I don't even know what to pray. I don't know what to say. I don't know where to start. Sometimes the words just don't come. You could be in a place where you desperately need to talk to God, but you just can't seem to say a word. Romans 8:26 says, "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." The beauty of prayer is that we don't even need to have the words. The Holy Spirit can see deep inside of us, to the very depths of our souls, and He can see what we truly need and what we want to say. He intercedes on our behalf and takes those unspoken requests to God.

I'm also afraid to say that too often our prayers consist only of requests. We need to understand that God is not a vending machine. We shouldn't just send up our requests and suddenly expect an answer. Yes, sometimes it does work that way, but most times, not. We shouldn't only talk to God when we want something. 

After all, prayer is a conversation. Christians shouldn't be afraid to just talk to God like they would talk to someone else. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Hey, God. So I'm really bored at work right now." Or "The funniest thing happened to me today. You'll get a kick out of this." Or "Man, I have so much homework right now. My professors have been really laying it on me this week." God wants to hear it all! He wants to take part in every aspect of your life. Yes, He already knows your thoughts and feelings, but He wants to hear you say them. He wants you to share them with Him. 

Think of a mother who already knows that their child got an A on a test. She still wants her kid to tell her about the A. There's something about hearing the excitement in his voice and seeing his facial expressions that make it so much sweeter. God wants the same from us. He wants to see our excitement, our sorrow, our frustration, our helplessness, our happiness. He wants us to tell Him everything - every emotion, every thought, every feeling, every moment. 

I don't think a lot of us, myself included, realize just how many times during the day that God answers our prayers. I've been noticing a lot lately that I will ask God to help me do something, but when it actually gets done, I forget to thank Him for His help. Or often, I don't realize just how incredible it is that He answers the small prayers. Of course, we thank and praise Him when He does great things - as we should - but we forget to thank and praise Him for the small things. Those are equally special and should be treated as such. 

We need to realize that prayer is incredibly powerful. We are talking to the One who parted the Red Sea, who stopped the sun during the middle of the day, who destroyed armies when all seemed hopeless, who took down a giant with a small boy and a sling. No thing is too big or too small for Him. When we pray, we need to believe that God will hear our request. We need to believe deep down inside that God can and will give us an answer. That answer may not always be what we want, but we need to take it to God regardless. We need to have faith that God will make the best of the situation. With faith, we can move mountains. 

So next time you pray, whether it be in the next 30 seconds or 30 minutes, take a minute to realize just how AWESOME it is that you are talking to God. Because it truly is completely and totally awesome. What an amazing experience - to speak with God Almighty and to have every confidence that He is listening.