Prayer: Making Requests

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship, September 11. 2010


Years ago in New York, I met a pastor named Jack McFarland who had special ministry of intercessory prayer. He spent an hour or two a day praying for people. He had a written list that was pages and pages long. He would systematically pray through his list. By the time I left New York his list was far too long for him to pray through in a single day. Thousands of people counted on him to pray for them. So he spent his designated time praying in order through the list. When his time was up, he'd mark his place and pick up the next day and keep praying.

Jack and his wife both exuded a magical warmth and gentleness that naturally drew you to him. Having him pray for you felt really special. He influenced my own prayer life, though I never became a heroic intercessor like him.

Prayer, the way Jack did it, was a systematic, structured discipline. It was like running or weight lifting or practicing the piano or guitar. It seemed to me that Jack's prayer life was part of filled him with such a magnetic warmth and connection with people. Prayer had changed Jack.

It also seemed to me then and seems to me still today, to be the most exalted form of prayer as request. Petitioning heaven on behalf of others.


Then there is Henry's kind of prayer. (This story is taken from Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom.)

He had gone to Brooklyn where some of his old friends were. He barged in with an unloaded gun, waved it around demanding money and drugs. They handed over the stuff and he headed back to his place in the Bronx. At some point that night he realized what he had done. He had just robbed people who knew him. People who knew where he lived. People who had ready access to guns and friends with guns. He spent the night hiding behind the garbage cans in front of their apartment with a gun in his hand waiting for the attack.

He prayed. “God, get me out of this and I'll shape up and follow you.”

The attack did not come.

The next day he flushed his heroin down the toilet. Began going to church and eventually ended up Detroit, in the bleakest, most hopeless part of that hopeless city, pastoring a church in a falling down building with a huge hole in the roof.

There he served other druggies, ex-cons, and losers. And on rare occasions experienced the blessing of seeing someone else find the same kind of deliverance he had tasted back in New York.

So which kind of prayer is better? Which kind of prayer is more likely to get God's attention? Jack's daily, quiet focused prayer or Henry's desperate, spur-of-the-moment, bargaining plea for back up while he held his shotgun? Which is more likely to get results?



We can find parallels to both approaches to prayer in the Bible.

Two men are specifically described as practicing intercession, prayer for others. Job and Daniel. Job prayed regularly for his children. He even offered sacrifices on their behalf. Daniel prayed for his nation, the Jewish people who were living in exile in Babylon.

Both men experienced catastrophe in connection with their praying. In Job's story we read that God bragged on Job because of his goodness. In response the devil attacked everything Job possessed, then managed to get his kids all killed in a disastrous house collapse.

Daniel gets thrown into a lion's den as a result of his daily prayer practice.

Now in both cases it wasn't really their praying that got the men into trouble. They were targeted for the gestalt of their lives, for the whole package of integrity and personal and professional goodness. Still the Bible presents their prayer practice as an important part of their spiritual life.

And their spiritual life offered no protection against earthly disaster.

Then there is the story of Samson. From the very first time we meet him, he is willful and reckless. He rejects his father's counsel. He flirts with prostitutes. He becomes the leader of Israel at a time when there is a serious leadership vacuum. For twenty years he serves as something of shield for the Israelites from the dominating tyranny of the Philistines. Along the way he kills a lot of Philistines. They finally capture him. They put out his eyes and put him to work in prison as a mule grinding grain by pushing the long arm of a mill round and round.

Some time later, at a major national feast, the Philistine leaders brought Samson out to show him off and celebrate their victory over Israel's hero. There in that feast Samson prayed. “Lord, give me strength just once more so I can get revenge on these Philistines for putting out my eyes.”

Samson had the boy who was leading him take him over to the central pillars of the massive temple. (Apparently, Samson had been there before and knew the design of the place.) God answered Samson's prayer and gave him his usual supernatural power. Samson pushed the pillars over and collapsed the temple. The writer reports that Samson killed more Philistines in that single event than in all the rest of his life.

This story raises all kinds of interesting questions. But notice this: God answered Samson's prayer! Instead of spending decades as a prisoner, humiliated and tormented, he died as a hero in the eyes of his people. In his own eyes!

Two very different approaches to prayer: Daniel's daily, steady habit. Samson's desperate 911 call. Jack McFarlands practice of daily intercession. Henry's spontaneous cry for divine protection from impending retaliation from the drug dealers he has just ripped off.

What can we learn for ourselves from these stories?

FIRST
God is not predictable. At least not in terms of how he will respond to our specific requests. Sometimes God responds in dramatic and welcome ways. Like he did with Samson in the temple. Other times God makes us wait and wait and wait and only responds when we are desperate beyond words. Like he did with the woman Hannah who spent years begging for a child with no apparent effect (1 Samuel). Sometimes God does not respond at all. As happened with King Saul near the end of his life. (“Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. 1 Samuel 28:6)

There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act. The previous sentence should perhaps be put in 24 point type, underlined, colored red and put in BOLD. I repeat: There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act.

God is free. We cannot compel him to act, not by “claiming promises,” not by using formulas that invoke the words “bind,” “declare,” or “blood.” If you find various formulas helpful to you in your prayer life, great use them. But remember they no more compel God to act than Jack McFarland's prayer list compels God to act. Jack's paper list and you “magic words” are no more than tools to help you pray. They cannot be turned into levers by which you can manipulate or force God.

SECOND

God's response is not based on our character.

Sometimes God answers the prayers of scoundrels and sometimes not. Like Samson. Like King Saul. Like Henry the Detroit minister. Sometimes God rejects the requests of good people. Like with Jeremiah and John the Baptist (by inference).

THIRD: Two contrasting perspectives on prayer

Prayer as the key to heaven's treasures.

When we pray our requests, the focus of our attention is our desire for God to act. When we think of prayer this way—as the human quest for God's intervention—our focus is on what God does. Any kind of prayer will do in this situation. The power is in God not in the prayer or in the person praying. God does not need us to master some particular technique or discipline before he is able to act in this world.

We make our requests and God decides. We can make our request using the formulas of TV preachers. We can use the words Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer. We can claim the promises of the Bible and speak politely to God. Or we can pray in desperate, raw street language. Either way, polite or raw, our prayer is heard by God. And God acts or not out his great wisdom and love. It is not the “power” of our prayer that matters, it is the power of God.

Prayer as spiritual practice.

We can also think of prayer as spiritual exercise. Just as people exercise to get strong, practice to become skillful on the piano or drums or guitar and do homework in preparation for taking exams, so we can engage in regular prayer as a spiritual exercise.

When people pray regularly, it has an affect on them. When we think of prayer as a human spiritual discipline, then the form or format of prayer matters. Regularity and practice matters. Location matters. Because in this case, the goal of prayer is to change the person praying.

Jack fuels his compassion by his focused time of intercessory prayer. I think if Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh spent an hour a day in intercessory prayer it would alter their speech. It would change their attitudes. If we spend time in prayer daily, it will change us.

Regular, daily prayer helps align us with God's kingdom. It helps us become effective agents of heaven.


So what is the bottom line? This:

If you are in an emergency, pray. Of course, I don't have to tell you this. It is natural to the human soul. In dire straights, our eyes naturally lift toward heaven. Our minds and often our voices naturally cry out, “Help!” The good news from the Bible? God hears. And he doesn't first run your request through a committee to see if you qualify for a response from heaven.

Second, if you are wanting a deeper, more authentic spiritual life, structure regular times of prayer into your days. Pray for people. (The fancy way of putting it is practice intercession.) Or find other forms of prayer to engage in regularly. Practice gratitude. Practice quiet listening prayer. Practice affirmational prayer. Whatever, just do it. God will take notice. Your heart will be blessed.