DO I BELIEVE PRAYER WORKS? No, I KNOW that prayer works. I know prayer works from personal experience, I know prayer works from seeing prayer work in the lives of others, I know prayer works for my Lord has told me.
To abide in Christ is to be in tune with Him - through diligently studying His Word, through faithfully going to Him in prayer, through awareness of the Holy Spirit within guiding us. In prayer ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you - when we find our prayers are in tune with Jesus' will.
Does God always answer prayers the way we want? No, we must keep in mind that God knows our needs better than we know them.
I realize that many people, frustrated about their prayers, do not like to hear this, but God always answers prayer. Sometimes it is, "Yes," other times, "No," and still other times, "Wait a while, My child."
For some who are new believers, some who are not mature in their faith and in the Word of God - that might be an exasperating answer. But it is true. About ten years ago, on the TimesDaily Religion Forum, a lady member was very antagonistic, telling me, "I used to be a Christian. But God let my eleven year old daughter die even though I prayed many times for her to be saved. God may exist, but if He does He is not the God you talk about."
This lady was bitter and, in some ways I can relate. If we do not have a strong walk with the Lord - times like that can drive us into deep despair. When we do not have strong faith to keep us in such times - it is easy to start blaming God. The lady told me, "I am agnostic, leaning toward atheism." I knew that she threw in the atheism just as a barb against me. But I also did understand her - and tried often, on the forum and in private messages - to reach her. I never could, but at least I knew that I had tried.
About twenty years ago, I first began posting to my Friends Ministry eNewsletter - and it grew to over 800 people. I would often share prayer requests sent to me by many of my Friends. And when you have that many Friends around the world, the number of prayer requests can become pretty large. After a while, some of my Friends began to complain that there were too many prayer requests and not enough Scripture discussions and dialogues. I understood, for it often did get the point where it seemed that so many of my posts were prayer requests - and although God does tell us to pray for one another, often too many prayers for folks we do not even know - can begin to burden us.
I did not want Friends leaving my Friends Ministry mail list - yet I felt a need to share prayer requests sent to me. What should I do? One evening Dory and I were taking our evening walk around the neighborhood when I felt God put an answer in my heart, "Start a separate Intercessory Prayer Chain." Simple answer, why had I not thought of that? In my next Friends Ministry eNewsletter I invited all my Friends who wanted to participate in the Intercessory Prayer Chain to send me an e-mail asking to be put on that list. About 150 Friends responded and thus began the prayer chain.
Some time later I found Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa's "CCCM Prayer Chain" and asked to be included. When I got the first e-mail from them, it was not what I had expected. I expected to see something like, "Our friend, Al Smith, had a heart attack and has been hospitalized. Pray for his recovery." And variations of such specific prayer needs.
But what I received was a long list of names (several hundred), like a telephone book, and most often with no specific prayer need shown It was like: Pray for Al Smith. Duh!, pray what for Al Smith? So I quickly dropped off their list - for I find it difficult praying what I call the "Telephone Book" Prayer List.
You will notice a key phrase in the paragraph above: SPECIFIC Prayer. Why is this important? If we pray for a specific need - then we will know when God has answered that prayer - and we can give thanks to God for an answered prayer. If we pray in generalities, how can we know when our prayer has been answered? If we pray such as, "Oh, Lord, I pray for all the people in our church." Duh! You pray what for those members?
That is kind of like a funny joke a dear Friend, Bob Diorio, shared with me years ago. Bob was a fellow computer salesman, but could have had a career as a stand-up comedian.
The spiritual mentor who led me to the Lord in 1987, Pastor Sam Lacanienta, taught us about prayer. "Do not pray in generalities, for then you have no idea what you really were asking of God - or if He answered. And if you do not know what you ask of God, how will you know when He answers that prayer?" The most important part of prayer is not receiving what we want, but receiving what God wants for us - and giving thanks for that answered prayer. In that way, we abide in Christ and we glorify God.
For years in several home churches in Orange and Riverside Counties, I was responsible for doing the Sunday Church Bulletin. Members of our church family would give me prayer requests and each Sunday our bulletin contained two separate prayer inserts: One was "Prayer Requests." The other was giving thanks for "Answered Prayers." And I did put the burden on folks that when they asked us to pray for a need - they should tell us when and how God answered that prayer need. Then we all could give thanks to God for answered prayers.
Many years ago, my step-father had my mother in a cult church, Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God. Each year they would go to another location and have one week of ritual ceremonies. One year their meeting was in Dayton, Ohio, so they planned to go through Indianapolis and visit for one night with my cousin. Then the next day drive to Dayton. I prayed for God to give them safe travel, protect them from any car problems or accidents, and bring them home safely. One hour out of Indianapolis driving to Dayton, their car stopped running and they had to be towed back to Indianapolis. The next day they drove on to Dayton and a week later came safely home to Alabama.
I was a wee bit frustrated with God. "Lord, I prayed that You protect them from any car problems - and you let their car stop running."
His answer, "What you really prayed for is that I bring them home safely. And I did!" And I gave thanks to God for an answered prayer. There is a possibility that had they continued on toward Dayton that day - in another few miles they may have been involved in a serious accident. I will never know - but my omniscient God knows. And He answered my prayer by bringing them home safely.
In 2000 Dory and I were helping our pastor lead a Bible Study at the Vintage Terrace Seniors apartments in Corona, California. One week a member, Frank, was there and asking prayer. He had several large black growths on his face which looked like large warts. He had gone to the doctor and they were cancerous.
A week or so later, I noticed that when I combed my hair, something in my right temple began to snag and bleed. Looking more closely, it was a large black growth, very similar to what Frank had on his face. Dory and I were very concerned and she told me, "You better let the doctor look at that." And I agreed.
That night as I lay in bed, I put my finger on that growth and had a simple prayer, "Lord, please remove this growth." That was my whole prayer, for when I prayed it I felt the peace of God come over me, like a warm light shining on me, and I knew that He had answered, "Yes." The next day, the growth was noticeably smaller, the next day even smaller. And by the fourth day, it was completely gone - leaving only a small white scar - which is there to this day, a reminder of God's love and faithfulness. Why four days and not instantaneously? I leave the details to God.
I have been in the computer industry since 1958. And in 1966 I transitioned from Field Engineering into Computer Sales. At that time technical experience was important for a computer salesman, hence we were called Sales Engineers. Fast forward about twenty years and the computer industry had changed drastically. In the mid-1980s and forward a person with a technical background was no longer needed to sell computer systems. By then, a warm body on the telephone who knew at least ten technical words and could push for the sale (sort of like the used car salesman) was what companies wanted. Warm bodies were cheaper, there was much less sales expense, and it was the era of mass consumer selling.
In that environment, several times I found myself unemployed for long periods since most companies did not want experience, just a glib telephone tongue. About 1985 I found myself unemployed for about a year. And because my mom had a heart problem, I would not let her know my situation. As far as she was concerned, I was working and just fine. Finally one month toward the end of that year, Dory and I found ourselves at the last day of the month, with only $5 in our pocket - and rent due the next day.
At 3:00 PM California time I went into my bedroom, lay on the bed, and prayed a simple prayer, "Lord, give us a way to pay our rent." That was it, my complete prayer with my most pressing prayer need.
The next morning my mom called and told me, "Yesterday I was taking a bath and just felt like I wanted to send you money. I had your brother wire you $1000 this morning." I asked her, "Mom, what time were you taking a bath?" Her answer, "About 5:00 PM" - which is 3:00 PM California time - exactly when I was laying on my bed and praying. My rent was $750 - so God also gave me enough for food and utilities. God knows our needs.
In the late 1980s after I became a believer, my mom being in a cult church really began to weigh heavily on me. I had been praying for her for several years and a couple of times when she was in the hospital and I went home to be with her. I took that time to try to witness to her. I will never forget the one day in her hospital room, we were watching a Christian show on the television, and I told her, "Mom, it does not matter what a person has done. A person can be a murderer, but if that person believes and asks Jesus Christ to forgive him, to come into his heart and save him, be his Lord and Savior - Christ will do that. Christ will save that person!"
Her response floored me. She meekly told me, "I never knew that." That broke my heart for she had been in this cult church, Herbert W. Armstrong's church, for twenty years - and did not know that Jesus Christ would forgive her? That broke my heart - but it also made me wonder how many other folks are sitting in churches week after week - and do not know that Christ will forgive them?
And in 1993, with a history of several strokes, my step-father moved her from her home of over fifty years in Alabama - to Little Rock, Arkansas, so he could be near his daughter. Suddenly that home I grew up in and always knew was there if I ever felt a need to go home - was no longer in my family. It had been sold. That bothered me, made me angry. But a few months later he and his daughter put my mom into a nursing home and that made me furious. If I could have seen him at that time, I am not sure of what would have happened.
But, once again God spoke to me, telling me, "This is what you have been praying for, a way to save your mother."
I called the nursing home and asked, "Is there a Baptist church near your facility?" She told me, "There is one next door and they do Bible study here."
I called the pastor and told him about my mom. He went to visit her, took her a Bible (which I still have), and got her involved in their Bible study. The rest, as we often say, is history. When my mom passed away on February 22, 1994, she was a Child of God and I knew she went directly into His presence. That is the power of specific prayer.
One last thought on specific intercessory prayer. One evening at Bible study, the lady who was our hostess that evening, Natty Almeda, came home from work. She was an Operating Room Nurse. She told us that Lolita Mueller, the lady who had introduced me to the church where I was saved - had exploratory surgery that day. She told us that when the surgeons opened Lolita, her body was so full of cancer that all they could do was close her up and send her home. We asked Natty how long she had and Natty felt that Lolita had only weeks, maybe months, to live.
Our Bible study group, our church fellowship, and all of Lolita's friends and family began to pray for her. At the end of six months, Lolita began to do church office work at home. At the end of a year, Lolita was able to resume her ministry as our church choir director - and she did that for another six years. This woman who should have been dead in a matter of weeks - lived another very productive seven years. Yes, God does answer prayers.
Okay, this is my final thought. When I was a twelve year old boy growing up in Alabama in the 1940s, I had a bad experience with a traveling Pentecostal Revival Preacher who manipulated and forced me to come forward at a Revival Meeting to be saved. That event confused me, for no one explained what it meant to be saved, no one told me anything. They just got all excited with their praying, laying hands on me, and shouting hallelujah. And I went home a very confused little boy.
That event drove me away from God until I was fifty years old. Today, even though I believe with all my heart in prayer, today when I seem to pray a hundred times a day (prayer for me is really an ongoing conversation between me and my Lord, sort of a running dialogue) - I still have a problem when someone effectively tells me, "Drop, kneel, and pray" - for that is when that twelve year old boy inside me rebels and runs the other way.
Dory has often told me, "That happened a long time ago. Just let it go." And I ask her, "If a woman was raped when she was twelve years old - can she ever just let it go?" She may put it out of her mind, but it is always there - and that twelve year old girl emerges in times or situations which causes her to reflect upon that long ago incident.
I tell Dory, while that young girl may have been physically raped - I feel that at the age of twelve I was "spiritually raped" - causing me to run from God. That feeling of being "spiritually raped" when I was young is still lurking down deep. It is under control, but that twelve year old boy is still in there - and when I feel pressured to "Drop, kneel, and pray!" - that young boy comes out of hiding. It does not lessen my love of God, my desire and need to pray - but it is always there, lurking in that hidden closet.
And that is another reason that I feel so strongly about our young people being in Bible studies with us, and in their own Sunday School Classes. We need to prepare them, teach them what it means to be saved, to walk with Christ - and if they are already saved, we are preparing them to tell their peers about their Jesus Christ, in effective and eternally blessed knowledge.
I have never thought about it before, but I wonder if what happened to me at twelve years old - can be why I could not pray aloud and in public for the first seven years I was a believer. Food for thought.
I pray that some of my long, rambling thoughts on prayer have been helpful to you, that you possibly found one or two golden nuggets that you can take away from this blog. If so, praise God.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
John 15:7-8, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples."
To abide in Christ is to be in tune with Him - through diligently studying His Word, through faithfully going to Him in prayer, through awareness of the Holy Spirit within guiding us. In prayer ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you - when we find our prayers are in tune with Jesus' will.
1 John 5:14-15, "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."
Does God always answer prayers the way we want? No, we must keep in mind that God knows our needs better than we know them.
Isaiah 55:8-9, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.' "
I realize that many people, frustrated about their prayers, do not like to hear this, but God always answers prayer. Sometimes it is, "Yes," other times, "No," and still other times, "Wait a while, My child."
For some who are new believers, some who are not mature in their faith and in the Word of God - that might be an exasperating answer. But it is true. About ten years ago, on the TimesDaily Religion Forum, a lady member was very antagonistic, telling me, "I used to be a Christian. But God let my eleven year old daughter die even though I prayed many times for her to be saved. God may exist, but if He does He is not the God you talk about."
This lady was bitter and, in some ways I can relate. If we do not have a strong walk with the Lord - times like that can drive us into deep despair. When we do not have strong faith to keep us in such times - it is easy to start blaming God. The lady told me, "I am agnostic, leaning toward atheism." I knew that she threw in the atheism just as a barb against me. But I also did understand her - and tried often, on the forum and in private messages - to reach her. I never could, but at least I knew that I had tried.
About twenty years ago, I first began posting to my Friends Ministry eNewsletter - and it grew to over 800 people. I would often share prayer requests sent to me by many of my Friends. And when you have that many Friends around the world, the number of prayer requests can become pretty large. After a while, some of my Friends began to complain that there were too many prayer requests and not enough Scripture discussions and dialogues. I understood, for it often did get the point where it seemed that so many of my posts were prayer requests - and although God does tell us to pray for one another, often too many prayers for folks we do not even know - can begin to burden us.
I did not want Friends leaving my Friends Ministry mail list - yet I felt a need to share prayer requests sent to me. What should I do? One evening Dory and I were taking our evening walk around the neighborhood when I felt God put an answer in my heart, "Start a separate Intercessory Prayer Chain." Simple answer, why had I not thought of that? In my next Friends Ministry eNewsletter I invited all my Friends who wanted to participate in the Intercessory Prayer Chain to send me an e-mail asking to be put on that list. About 150 Friends responded and thus began the prayer chain.
Some time later I found Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa's "CCCM Prayer Chain" and asked to be included. When I got the first e-mail from them, it was not what I had expected. I expected to see something like, "Our friend, Al Smith, had a heart attack and has been hospitalized. Pray for his recovery." And variations of such specific prayer needs.
But what I received was a long list of names (several hundred), like a telephone book, and most often with no specific prayer need shown It was like: Pray for Al Smith. Duh!, pray what for Al Smith? So I quickly dropped off their list - for I find it difficult praying what I call the "Telephone Book" Prayer List.
You will notice a key phrase in the paragraph above: SPECIFIC Prayer. Why is this important? If we pray for a specific need - then we will know when God has answered that prayer - and we can give thanks to God for an answered prayer. If we pray in generalities, how can we know when our prayer has been answered? If we pray such as, "Oh, Lord, I pray for all the people in our church." Duh! You pray what for those members?
That is kind of like a funny joke a dear Friend, Bob Diorio, shared with me years ago. Bob was a fellow computer salesman, but could have had a career as a stand-up comedian.
A Blonde became a Christian believer and knew that God answers prayer. She really believed and kept praying, "God please let me win the lottery!" Week after week, she prayed the same prayer, "God please let me win the lottery!" Finally one day, totally exasperated, she prayed to God, "Lord, why won't You answer my prayer?" Then she heard the voice of God, "Do Me a favor, Blondie. Buy a ticket!"
The spiritual mentor who led me to the Lord in 1987, Pastor Sam Lacanienta, taught us about prayer. "Do not pray in generalities, for then you have no idea what you really were asking of God - or if He answered. And if you do not know what you ask of God, how will you know when He answers that prayer?" The most important part of prayer is not receiving what we want, but receiving what God wants for us - and giving thanks for that answered prayer. In that way, we abide in Christ and we glorify God.
For years in several home churches in Orange and Riverside Counties, I was responsible for doing the Sunday Church Bulletin. Members of our church family would give me prayer requests and each Sunday our bulletin contained two separate prayer inserts: One was "Prayer Requests." The other was giving thanks for "Answered Prayers." And I did put the burden on folks that when they asked us to pray for a need - they should tell us when and how God answered that prayer need. Then we all could give thanks to God for answered prayers.
Many years ago, my step-father had my mother in a cult church, Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God. Each year they would go to another location and have one week of ritual ceremonies. One year their meeting was in Dayton, Ohio, so they planned to go through Indianapolis and visit for one night with my cousin. Then the next day drive to Dayton. I prayed for God to give them safe travel, protect them from any car problems or accidents, and bring them home safely. One hour out of Indianapolis driving to Dayton, their car stopped running and they had to be towed back to Indianapolis. The next day they drove on to Dayton and a week later came safely home to Alabama.
I was a wee bit frustrated with God. "Lord, I prayed that You protect them from any car problems - and you let their car stop running."
His answer, "What you really prayed for is that I bring them home safely. And I did!" And I gave thanks to God for an answered prayer. There is a possibility that had they continued on toward Dayton that day - in another few miles they may have been involved in a serious accident. I will never know - but my omniscient God knows. And He answered my prayer by bringing them home safely.
In 2000 Dory and I were helping our pastor lead a Bible Study at the Vintage Terrace Seniors apartments in Corona, California. One week a member, Frank, was there and asking prayer. He had several large black growths on his face which looked like large warts. He had gone to the doctor and they were cancerous.
A week or so later, I noticed that when I combed my hair, something in my right temple began to snag and bleed. Looking more closely, it was a large black growth, very similar to what Frank had on his face. Dory and I were very concerned and she told me, "You better let the doctor look at that." And I agreed.
That night as I lay in bed, I put my finger on that growth and had a simple prayer, "Lord, please remove this growth." That was my whole prayer, for when I prayed it I felt the peace of God come over me, like a warm light shining on me, and I knew that He had answered, "Yes." The next day, the growth was noticeably smaller, the next day even smaller. And by the fourth day, it was completely gone - leaving only a small white scar - which is there to this day, a reminder of God's love and faithfulness. Why four days and not instantaneously? I leave the details to God.
I have been in the computer industry since 1958. And in 1966 I transitioned from Field Engineering into Computer Sales. At that time technical experience was important for a computer salesman, hence we were called Sales Engineers. Fast forward about twenty years and the computer industry had changed drastically. In the mid-1980s and forward a person with a technical background was no longer needed to sell computer systems. By then, a warm body on the telephone who knew at least ten technical words and could push for the sale (sort of like the used car salesman) was what companies wanted. Warm bodies were cheaper, there was much less sales expense, and it was the era of mass consumer selling.
In that environment, several times I found myself unemployed for long periods since most companies did not want experience, just a glib telephone tongue. About 1985 I found myself unemployed for about a year. And because my mom had a heart problem, I would not let her know my situation. As far as she was concerned, I was working and just fine. Finally one month toward the end of that year, Dory and I found ourselves at the last day of the month, with only $5 in our pocket - and rent due the next day.
At 3:00 PM California time I went into my bedroom, lay on the bed, and prayed a simple prayer, "Lord, give us a way to pay our rent." That was it, my complete prayer with my most pressing prayer need.
The next morning my mom called and told me, "Yesterday I was taking a bath and just felt like I wanted to send you money. I had your brother wire you $1000 this morning." I asked her, "Mom, what time were you taking a bath?" Her answer, "About 5:00 PM" - which is 3:00 PM California time - exactly when I was laying on my bed and praying. My rent was $750 - so God also gave me enough for food and utilities. God knows our needs.
In the late 1980s after I became a believer, my mom being in a cult church really began to weigh heavily on me. I had been praying for her for several years and a couple of times when she was in the hospital and I went home to be with her. I took that time to try to witness to her. I will never forget the one day in her hospital room, we were watching a Christian show on the television, and I told her, "Mom, it does not matter what a person has done. A person can be a murderer, but if that person believes and asks Jesus Christ to forgive him, to come into his heart and save him, be his Lord and Savior - Christ will do that. Christ will save that person!"
Her response floored me. She meekly told me, "I never knew that." That broke my heart for she had been in this cult church, Herbert W. Armstrong's church, for twenty years - and did not know that Jesus Christ would forgive her? That broke my heart - but it also made me wonder how many other folks are sitting in churches week after week - and do not know that Christ will forgive them?
And in 1993, with a history of several strokes, my step-father moved her from her home of over fifty years in Alabama - to Little Rock, Arkansas, so he could be near his daughter. Suddenly that home I grew up in and always knew was there if I ever felt a need to go home - was no longer in my family. It had been sold. That bothered me, made me angry. But a few months later he and his daughter put my mom into a nursing home and that made me furious. If I could have seen him at that time, I am not sure of what would have happened.
But, once again God spoke to me, telling me, "This is what you have been praying for, a way to save your mother."
I called the nursing home and asked, "Is there a Baptist church near your facility?" She told me, "There is one next door and they do Bible study here."
I called the pastor and told him about my mom. He went to visit her, took her a Bible (which I still have), and got her involved in their Bible study. The rest, as we often say, is history. When my mom passed away on February 22, 1994, she was a Child of God and I knew she went directly into His presence. That is the power of specific prayer.
One last thought on specific intercessory prayer. One evening at Bible study, the lady who was our hostess that evening, Natty Almeda, came home from work. She was an Operating Room Nurse. She told us that Lolita Mueller, the lady who had introduced me to the church where I was saved - had exploratory surgery that day. She told us that when the surgeons opened Lolita, her body was so full of cancer that all they could do was close her up and send her home. We asked Natty how long she had and Natty felt that Lolita had only weeks, maybe months, to live.
Our Bible study group, our church fellowship, and all of Lolita's friends and family began to pray for her. At the end of six months, Lolita began to do church office work at home. At the end of a year, Lolita was able to resume her ministry as our church choir director - and she did that for another six years. This woman who should have been dead in a matter of weeks - lived another very productive seven years. Yes, God does answer prayers.
Okay, this is my final thought. When I was a twelve year old boy growing up in Alabama in the 1940s, I had a bad experience with a traveling Pentecostal Revival Preacher who manipulated and forced me to come forward at a Revival Meeting to be saved. That event confused me, for no one explained what it meant to be saved, no one told me anything. They just got all excited with their praying, laying hands on me, and shouting hallelujah. And I went home a very confused little boy.
That event drove me away from God until I was fifty years old. Today, even though I believe with all my heart in prayer, today when I seem to pray a hundred times a day (prayer for me is really an ongoing conversation between me and my Lord, sort of a running dialogue) - I still have a problem when someone effectively tells me, "Drop, kneel, and pray" - for that is when that twelve year old boy inside me rebels and runs the other way.
Dory has often told me, "That happened a long time ago. Just let it go." And I ask her, "If a woman was raped when she was twelve years old - can she ever just let it go?" She may put it out of her mind, but it is always there - and that twelve year old girl emerges in times or situations which causes her to reflect upon that long ago incident.
I tell Dory, while that young girl may have been physically raped - I feel that at the age of twelve I was "spiritually raped" - causing me to run from God. That feeling of being "spiritually raped" when I was young is still lurking down deep. It is under control, but that twelve year old boy is still in there - and when I feel pressured to "Drop, kneel, and pray!" - that young boy comes out of hiding. It does not lessen my love of God, my desire and need to pray - but it is always there, lurking in that hidden closet.
And that is another reason that I feel so strongly about our young people being in Bible studies with us, and in their own Sunday School Classes. We need to prepare them, teach them what it means to be saved, to walk with Christ - and if they are already saved, we are preparing them to tell their peers about their Jesus Christ, in effective and eternally blessed knowledge.
I have never thought about it before, but I wonder if what happened to me at twelve years old - can be why I could not pray aloud and in public for the first seven years I was a believer. Food for thought.
I pray that some of my long, rambling thoughts on prayer have been helpful to you, that you possibly found one or two golden nuggets that you can take away from this blog. If so, praise God.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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