I've never been very good about praying for lists of people on a daily basis. There is something inauthentic about reading off names of strangers day after day. It treats prayer as magic -- that if enough people pray for something to happen consistently, God will act. Mitchell Lewis writes:
Maybe I'll even be moved to ask you to join me in prayer. But I won't send you an email asking you to send it to everyone on your contact list. And I won't put my trust in the power of some anonymous prayer factory. The mere act of praying changes nothing. The volume of prayer is insignificant. A single, wordless sigh lifted to God means more than the work of a thousand strangers mechanically praying for names on a piece of paper with words designed by researchers.
Hat tip.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
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6 comments:
I've just recently been thinking about this very thing, and wondering why it is that my husband and I are the only ones looking at people and listening to their requests during Bible Study and not writing anything down. It's always seemed so insincere to me to pray for something that didn't make enough of an impact on your heart for you to remember it.
I agree that a single prayer can be amazingly powerful, but I don't think we should minimize God's power to respond to the prayers of many people using names on a list.
If your approach is to say a name without expressing a connection to them, then it would seem to be an inauthentic prayer.
On the other hand, if you express a request from your heart, on behalf of a fellow person who God loves and who God has caused your life to be connected or intersect with them, then I think the prayer is authentic.
I don't think it's a "form of magic" that requires a certain number of people or prayers to work, but I still think that earnest prayers offered by others, even "strangers" can be powerful. We are only strangers in terms of our limited experience, not in God's eyes.
John, I agree. A study was released just recently showing that prayer didn't seem to have a positive effect on heart patients when the people were randomly praying for names on a list. And I thought: this study doesn't show anything, in my mind, about what prayer really is. Honestly, I don't usually relate to God in parental imagery a lot, but when i do the most is when I'm thinking of how my prayer relationship with God is. How would we share concerns with our own parents?
On my blog (Prayerlogue) for October 12, 13, 14, I did a sermon titled "Unleashing the Power." In it I talked about praying for "lists." I said, "I can't imagine God saying, 'Oh gee, if only you'd had one more prayer, I'd have answered it, but..."
I believe that the best thing I can do for my spirit is to pray for you. By telling someone that we'll pray for them forces US to spend time in prayer. AND it "unleashes a power inward, outward, and upward" as it affects everything about us "inwardly, outwardly, and upwardly..."
Another thing I combat is the "praying in Jesus' name" as if it is some magic "abra-ca-dabra" we tag onto the end of our prayers.
Prayer is indeed an interesting thing!
As intercessory prayer goes, I've often wondered if Moses' interaction with the Lord when the Israelites kept acting up was a form of prayer since he was speaking directly to the Lord. Still, Moses had a direct stake in the new nation, so his prayer to the Lord to relent from His judgment on a "stiff-necked people" was not impersonal.
The real challenge I face when confronted with these prayer requests is in trying to make it personal so that I can take genuine ownership of the prayer request although, not considering myself to be a prayer "warrior" in any real sense, I have often said that the Lord will hear their own prayer just as readily as He would hear mine.
It seems that much of the value in prayer is to the person doing the praying. So if you're praying down a list just to accomplish the task, I don't see it doing much good on any front. However, if you are actually involved in the need and the situation, that's another matter entirely.
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