We were at the foot of the hospital bed where I’d spent the night hovering over the deteriorating body of my 26-year-old daughter.
“If God is God, He’s going to do what He wants, so why pray?” I asked my husband one day in the middle of our daughter’s critical illness.
This in turn places us in our rightful place of submission inviting Him to accomplish His will. Prayer elevates God to His just position as omnipotent, omniscient, holy, and Sovereign Ruler. Scripture records prayers in both Old and New Testament which ask, thank, praise, confess, and worship.Īligning our will to the will of the Father is a major purpose of prayer. Through prayer, we communicate our requests, desires, and emotions. Jesus, one with God, taught His followers to pray in His name. Jesus invoked the Father, giving us a model to follow.Īnother purpose of prayer is intimate spiritual communion. In the New Testament, Jesus’ prayer in what we know as the Lord’s Prayer, began with, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…” Matt. Throughout the Old Testament, one of the primary purposes of prayer is to set Him apart as the Sovereign recipient of petition, confession, and adoration. When “people began to qara on the name of the Lord,” they named Jehovah as the One true God. Adam called or named the animals in Genesis 2:19. God called the creation into existence in Genesis 1:5. The Hebrew word, qara, is translated called or named in English. Opening a window into prayer’s biblical origins gives us a glimpse of what God intended prayer should be. Why do we pray? What does the Bible tell us about the purpose of prayer? We pray for all sorts of reasons, some valid and some not. How Do We Know That Prayer Changes Things? Despite desperate petitions for healing, each day was worse than the day before. When our daughter lay in a hospital bed completely paralyzed, teetering between life and death, a million prayers didn’t seem to change the circumstances. Yet, for most of us, there remain those times when our petitions seem to bounce off heaven’s ceiling with no response whatsoever. Many of us have experienced answered prayer in our own lives. The Lord answered with fire from heaven in such a definite and powerful manner the identity of the One true God could not be mistaken. 1 Kings 18 records a sort of prayer dual as Elijah prays to God while worshipers of Baal prayed to their god. The Apostle Paul prayed for Publius’ father who was sick with a fever and God healed him ( Acts 28:8). Daniel prayed for God to reveal Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its meaning, and God did ( Daniel 2:18-20). Many of them God answered in miraculous ways.
#SCRIPTURE ON PRAYER CHANGES THINGS TRIAL#
For most of my life, I absorbed those three words without question, but in the darkest trial of my life, I began to examine the phrase and wonder how can we know for certain that prayer changes things? Tension surfaced between circumstances I faced and what I’d always believed. I’ve seen it printed on T-shirts, memes, and coffee mugs.
It’s quoted in times of joy and in seasons of sorrow. I’ve heard “prayer changes things” all my life.
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