Worthless Prayers?

WORTHLESS PRAYERS?

by Robert Allen

            You have a prayer list—GREAT!

            How do you use it?

            Let me tell you a story.  My wife and I come from fairly large families.  Between the two of us we have around 150 immediate relatives including in-laws, cousins, nephews and nieces.  I have tried regularly to pray through all of those names.  However, the sheer number of people on the list meant that I really didn’t do much more than ask God to bless them—by name of course.

            My prayers resembled glancing through Facebook posts and clicking an occasional “like.”  Since God knew all of their names already I realized that my prayers, though well-intentioned, were basically useless.  They fell into that category which Jesus called “vain repetitions” (Matthew 6:7).

            Maybe you have faced the same frustration with the names of the missionaries your church supports.  You have a list of names and you pray for them regularly.  But you don’t really know how to pray specifically.  When a prayer letter arrives you read it and take their requests before God.  But you can’t just keep doing that until the next letter arrives.

            Here are some suggestions for creative communication with God using the prayer lists you already have.  Even if you don’t know any more than what you have read in an occasional Facebook post, you can still pray creatively and effectively.

            Pray for a greater knowledge of God.  Paul prayed this prayer for the people of the church in Colosse, that they would be “growing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).  We may not know the spiritual condition of all of those on our prayer lists, but we can be sure that they need to know God better.  Becoming aware of His attributes, and learning to value our friendship with Him above all other relationships forms a solid foundation for spiritual growth.

            Pray for their personal transformation into the image of Christ.  Learning to treasure God above all else should result in “being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory” (II Cor. 3:18).  Pray that every joy and every sorrow, every success and every failure, every pleasure and every annoyance will push them closer to identity with Christ.  Pray that their reactions will be godly rather than worldly, eternal rather than temporal, trusting rather than rebelling.

            Pray that they will serve God by serving others.  Every choice we make will be either self-centered or God-centered.  Becoming like Christ will mean that we will “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Phil. 2:3-4).  Pray that those on your list will open their eyes to the needy world in which we live.  Pray that they will see others through the eyes of the Lord, loving them and serving them for His glory.

            Pray that they will realize their full potential in the will of God.  God is looking for followers who will change the world.  He has created every Christian “in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10).  Pray that those on your prayer list will become the ones God uses to glorify Himself through their accomplishments.  Pray that they will realize their true potential in any area of interest or ability.  Pray that because of their lives the world will never be the same.

            When you have prayed these prayers for others—pray them for yourself as well.

I have been preparing some resources to aid in the exciting adventure of creative communication with God.  The first book Dare to Walk on Water: Treasuring God will be coming out this spring.  The others will be available on into the summer and fall.

            Dare to Walk on Water: Treasuring God

Dare to Walk on Water: Serving God

Dare to Walk on Water: Transformed by God

Dare to Walk on Water: Creative Like God

Dare to Walk on Water: The Workbook

            The four Dare to Walk on Water devotionals and the workbook can be used in any order.  Read the devotionals a day at a time or spend an entire week on each chapter, taking time to put into action the adventures awaiting you as you experience the power of the Word of God at work in your own life.  DARE to improve creative communication with God.