Prayer, the Ultimate Recourse

     To engage in prayer is to admit: there is a God, He wants to enter into conversation, we can communicate with Him directly (through Jesus, God's Son), He is sovereign and worthy, and we are totally dependent on Him for everything. As Tim Keller puts it, prayer is a response to the knowledge of God. If that knowledge is too vague, then the prayer is more of a general cry for help and cannot reach true conversation. For the Christian, prayer is a spiritual gift. It is God's design to provide for our daily interaction with Him and to fellowship with Him. Paul affirms in his letter to the Galatians (Gal 4.5-6) , prayer is the Holy Spirit’s work in us to give us an unclouded understanding of God enabling us to converse with God as our Father.  What Christ followers know about God comes with verbal specificity through Scripture. God speaks to us through His word and we respond in prayer. As knowledge and comprehension increase, prayers deepen and conversation richens.

The resource of prayer    

     In Paul's letter to the Romans (Rom 15.30), Paul pleads with the Roman church to "[strive] together in prayer.” Prayer is not just a symbolic act. When we pray, it is an intentional labor. Abraham Lincoln expressed his reliance on prayer, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”  When we intercede for someone, it is an intentional labor of love. James tells us that the fervent/constant/intentional prayer of a righteous person (a person who is right with God) avails much.  The Romans were too far away to aid Paul in Jerusalem. But they had work to do. They needed to pray. Too often, we don’t labor enough in prayer. We say our little phrase and then go about our business. Paul begs, pleads based on his unity and relationship with the church in Rome through Jesus Christ and depending on the love they would share with him by having achieved that agape love he has been telling them about. This oneness and this love would be motivation that would drive them to respond to his plea. Paul knows, even given the distance, the church in Rome can do something extremely vital for him. That is prayer. Oswald Chambers wrote, “Prayer does not just fit us for the greater work. Prayer is the greater work.”  Before we do, ask God. While we do, communicate with God for continued wisdom and guidance. After we do, thank God for His provision and help. 

The relationship through prayer.    

     Prayer is communication. Coupled with Scripture, it becomes a two way conversation between the Father and I. Communication is one of the means for improving relationship. A relationship will not grow without it.

     Interceding is talking to God on someone else's behalf.  We get to pray for each other. When we can’t physically be there, when we are powerless to do anything else, we pray. Prayer is a first resort to action, it is a last resort to action. Prayer is our first recourse. Then, prayer is not enough when God is telling you to act. Prayer is the act when you can’t do anything else. Intercession forces me into a relationship with the one I am praying for. I may never meet them in person, but I become acutely aware that they exis and they are of value to God. A Oswald Chambers puts it, intercession exhorts me to raise myself "up to the point of getting the mind of Christ regarding the person for whom [I] am praying (Phil 2.5)." Prayer for one another heightens our relationship with each other.

     There are many reasons to pray. We pray to worship God, praising Him, acknowledging His lordship, His glory and His attributes that He constantly demonstrates as He labors for our good (Ps 8.1). We pray for confession (Ps 51) and to aks for a re-establishment or our communion with God through His grace and forgiveness. We pray to intercede. We pray for God's intervention; to be delivered from those against God (Romans 15.31) There are those around us who: care not for God and they intentionally work against those who do or care nothing for God and their actions unintentionally obstruct, hinder or distract. There are also those who care for God, but their busyness obstructs God’s will for us.

     In Romans 15.31, Paul prayed for his service to be accepted by the church; sufficient and efficient for the gospel.   The prayer that what we do, will be accepted as having facilitated kingdom progress or edified the people of God. That we might live in joy 1)celebrating the Kingdom work accomplished, 2)peace at a job accomplished and ready for the next thing. It is good to live without the feeling of something undone, something hanging over us or some relationship out of sorts. Earlier in Rom 15.29, Paul expresses confidence that his going to Rome would be fully in God’s blessing. Paul had completed his task in Asia, He had waited for God’s timing to move to the next task, and that time had come.
     Paul prays that he might be refreshment to his brothers and sisters in Christ.  When I relate to someone else, will that encounter refresh them or exhaust them?  Refreshing also means bearing each other’s burdens. Pray for renewal – spiritually, emotionally and physically.

       The only reason there is any power or effectiveness in our prayer is due to the one we are turning to for help. Our recourse, our source of strength is God. Max Lucado says “our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.”  He is the God. He is the only one. Paul declares God as "the God of peace." Only He provides satisfaction, deliverance from anxiety and worry, freedom from chains of sin, solution to our bad relationships. Peace comes: in the assurance of a right relationship with God and in knowing we are in His will. So, He’s got this.

     We end our prayers as those in Scripture do, with an "amen." So often we take “amen” for granted. We "rush" through it as just a proper conclusion. "Its what you do." But the "amen" is so much more. It is the final acknowledgment of “let it so be.” Corporately we are saying, “yeah, ditto, what he said.” It is the acknowledgment that all we have just said, through Christ as our mediator, with the help of the Holy Spirit helping us to pray (Rom 8.14), is laid at the feet of God the Father for His wise intervention. It is the affirmation that God, and only God, is able. That once laid in His care, our adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication is in the best place it could possibly be. And all the people said “we affirm that.” “So it is.”  Amen. 

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30 Days of Prayer Through the Psalms - a great way to spend these days improving our conversations with our Heavenly Father.