Dear Praying Church,
I want you to remember that your prayers work.
I pray because prayer works. If I thought prayer didn’t work, I would not waste my time praying.
Praying “works.” What does this mean? As I see things…,
• Prayer is powerful. Which means, it does things. (James 5:16)
• Prayer is effective. Which means, it changes things. (James 5:16)
• Praying brings me into relationship with God, experientially. I meet with God, in prayer. I experience and sense the presence of God, with me. This is important because experience, not theory, breeds conviction.
• I engage and co-partner with God in his redemptive mission.
• I experience God’s guiding hand. I can corroborate this. I have multiple examples, written in 3500+ pages of journals, over the past forty-five years. I have read countless stories of God's guidance, from among the 4000 students and pastors I have taught.
• I have seen things happen, and change, as a result of praying. I can make a case for the causal efficacy of praying as co-laboring with God.
• I have seen how a life of praying recalibrates, daily, my heart to the heart of God.
• A life of praying has changed me. For the better, I believe. (Note: for the Christian theist “better” is understood in terms of the “best” that is Jesus.)
• I experience a life of praying that renders me less anxious, less fearful, and less lonely. This is a palpable, existential, living reality.
• I know that praying changes things and changes the one who meets with God and prays.
• While praying, I often experience brokenness within me, resulting in breakthrough outside and around me.
The 4th-century theologian John Chrysostom, in a moment of joyful realization and remembering, wrote on the efficacy of praying.
The potency of prayer hath subdued the strength of fire;
it hath bridled the rage of lions,
hushed anarchy to rest,
extinguished wars,
appeased the elements,
expelled demons,
burst the chains of death,
expanded the gates of heaven,
assuaged diseases,
repelled frauds,
rescued cities from destruction,
stayed the sun in its course,
and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt.
Prayer is an all-efficient panoply,
a treasure undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted,
a sky unobscured by clouds,
a heaven unruffled by the storm.
It is the root,
the fountain,
the mother of a thousand blessings.
(From The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom)
James 5:16 says, Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Be encouraged! Your prayers work to make a holy difference.
Love,
PJ
REMEMBER
Make a list of answered prayers.
Keep adding to the list, as the Holy Spirit reminds you.
From my book 31 Letters to the Church on Praying.
