How Prayer Can Change Your Life Series

Christopher Hitchens is the author of God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything. The title of his book tells his attitude toward God. Hitchens was 62 when he was undergoing chemotherapy for his throat cancer. Now deceased, he was famous for his atheism. So many Christians prayed for his healing during his chemotherapy. To those who pray for his healing, Hitchens offers the following opinion, “I think of it as a nice gesture. And it may well make them feel better, which is a good thing in itself.” Is prayer nothing more than a nice gesture?

We pray to God to provide but we’re still out of work. We pray for the sick, but they are not healed. We pray for someone to have a life transforming experience with Christ, but he or she keeps running from God. We pray for a partner in life, but we are still alone. Is prayer just something that “makes us feel better?”

Today, we continue our series Seven Practices of a Healthy Christian. The series is began with the heart where our greatest satisfaction is found in Christ. Today, we concentrate on our knees for the purpose of prayer. I doubt if there is any Christian who has not sometimes found it difficult to pray.

Three Excuses Not to Pray

1. There is No Need to Pray

Paul Miller is the father to six children. Several summers ago, his family was camping in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania. His wife, Jill, stayed home with his eight year old daughter, Kim. They were exiting the campsite to head home in their Dodge Caravan, when Paul’s fourteen year old daughter, Ashley, lost her contact lens. Looking down at a forest floor, covered with leaves and twigs, there were a million little crevices for the lens to disappear into. Paul said, “Ashley, don’t move. Let’s pray.” Before the father could pray, Ashley burst into tears. She spoke these words, “What good does it do? I’ve prayed for Kim to speak, and she isn’t speaking.” Ashley’s little sister suffered from autism and developmental delay. She was mute because of her health problems. Kim hadn’t taken God at His word and asked that Jill, her sister, would speak. But nothing had happened. Many of us share in Ashley’s cynicism as we’ve prayed and seen little happen. Few of us have possessed Ashley’s courage to voice our doubts out loud. Cynicism throws water on the campfire of prayer. I sympathize with this young’s lady’s struggles. Nevertheless, such doubt hinder the arm of God. To doubt prayer is to doubt God.

2. I’m Too Busy to Pray

American culture is probably the hardest place in the world to pray. We are so busy that when we slow down to pray, we feel guilty. Americans prize accomplishments. We feel guilty if we are not busy. Your confidence in your own abilities is among the top killers of a prayer life that has any traction. People who are confident in their own abilities often fail at prayer. The very thing we are allergic to – our helplessness – is what makes prayer work. Multi-taskers must quit multi-tasking in order to pray.

3. I Don’t Feel Like Praying

The difficulty here is that we feel the need to pray we also feel just how unspiritual we really are. “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3-4). Our challenge is that we don’t come to Christ messy. “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will” (Luke 18:22).

God wants the real you. He doesn’t want you to shower before cleaning up. Gunshot victims don’t do surgery on themselves before going to the hospital. Come to God messy. Don’t be frozen by your self-preoccupation. Instead, tell God you are weary and tired.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

God is good to His deepest core: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory…” (Matthew 12:20).

It’s at just such times that Jesus tells a parable in order that His people would not lose heart to pray.

“And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth” (Luke 18:1-8)?