The Problem With Prayer

Prayer is a funny thing. As believers, we talk about prayer daily. We often tell others that we are praying for people, circumstances, relationships, and we ask them if we can pray for them, and promise to. There are times in my life when I prayed, truly prayed, clinging in desperation to Christ, knowing a specific circumstance could only change with his power, but that time is not now. If I look back on the times when I truly clung to God in prayer, I see how he answered, sustained me, restored broken relationships, etc . . . The problem is that I often don’t even think about him answering my prayers. They are a formality, something I “should” do, but I am often not really looking for him to actually DO anything in response. That is okay in some ways, because God is not a cash register, and he always answers with his wisdom and timing, but I should expect more, because as James writes, “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6). The other day, I had a conversation with an old friend about a relationship that had finally been restored after years of turmoil and prayer. I remember leaving the coffee shop that day feeling so convicted because it had taken me several months to figure out that our prayers had been answered, miraculously answered, and it was barely a blip on my radar. My response of, “That’s good!” should have been “Praise the Lord! Isn’t is miraculous what God has done!” Even in the past year, I look at personal prayers for others and my own personal life that have been answered, specifically, beyond what I could have asked or imagined, but I failed to give thanks, praise God, reflect on the beauty of his wisdom and timing in those situations. A friend got a job that changed her life, a seemingly irreparable marriage was restored, I reached personal goals I never thought I would reach, and I barely even noticed.

As 2 Peter states, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3: 8-9), and we do have to wait, sometimes even years, for a prayer to be answered in God’s perfect time, but I suggest that he has answered specific prayers for all of us in the past week, month, year, that we have failed to appreciate. Instead, I know for me, we focus on the world so much, that we can’t see how powerfully he is moving in our day, our time, our lives. May we pray continually, purposefully, and EXPECT His perfect results.