Prayer: The Forgotten Doctrine of American Christianity

A couple weekends ago we went to Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) to drop off one of the other missionaries. That Friday night I was told that we were going to church, and naturally I figured it was going to be a regular service, but it wasn’t. We walked in and there were about 10 people just sitting in a circle of chairs and I was very confused. We sat down and the pastor began to explain – it was a prayer meeting. He assigned each of us a different topic to pray over, ranging from illnesses of specific church members, to broader issues like the election in Egypt that, if the Muslim Party won, would lead to a lot of persecution in the future for the Christians there. We divided into smaller groups, and just prayed. It was awesome.

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The thing that concerns me most is that they have this meeting every week, yet I have never been to a meeting like this in America. Now, if this was only a problem in the church it’d still be a big problem, but what I’ve come to realize is that this is a problem in the lives of many Christians as well. We claim that we’re striving to be like Christ, but we don’t follow after the example he set for what our prayer lives should look like.

MANY times in the gospels it talks about how Jesus would just leave everyone and go spend time alone with the Father. Here are a few of the instances.

Mark 1:35

And early in the morning, while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place, and was praying there.

Luke 4:42

And when day came, He departed to a lonely place; and the multitudes were searching for Him, and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from going away from them.

Luke 6:12

And it was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.

I did not have a prayer life at all before last August, then I was just hit with this reality – that prayer obviously matters, or Jesus would not have done it so often.

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I think a common thought that the Enemy uses to push us away from a prayer life is that it really doesn’t do that much. God’s going to do what he wants to do, and all I can do is hope that what I want is in his plan. The problem with this is that in stands in direct contradiction to Scripture. See the two examples below.

James 4:2

You do not have, because you do not ask.

Exodus 32:12-14

¹² Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” ¹⁴ And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

It is clear in these scriptures that what we pray for can effect how God acts.

We have desires, but instead of praying we turn to our own abilities to try and capture these desires on our own. Obviously, there’s no guarantee God will give you what you want, but what does it hurt to ask? In the words of Chuck Smith, “Prayer does not change the purpose of God, but prayer does change the action of God."

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One of the biggest issues in our society is the fact that we can easily find fulfillment in things other than God. If someone who lived in a much poorer country felt broken and lost, perhaps they would come to God and fervently pray for strength, courage, and hope. What do we do? We try to satisfy our souls with worldly things like alcohol, pornography, video games, television, and many others. When I look at the scriptures, I can’t but ask why the heck we do this?

Philippians 4:6-7

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 11:28-30

²⁸ 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.”

We must understand the message of these scriptures as it applies to the gospel. He is our Father. He loves us. He forsook Jesus, that we may not be forsaken. He desires so greatly for us to cast our burdens on him, that he may care for us. Yet still, we make him get in line.

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The lack of prayer in our culture has been really rubbing me the wrong way lately, and going to the prayer meeting at the church was my breaking point. I wanted to write this in hopes that it would encourage you to take a look at your prayer life and compare it to what the bible says our prayer life should look like.

In summary, there are 3 main reasons why I believe we should pray often, with passion, and with faith.

1 – We should pray first and foremost because God wants us to. He desires our attention.

2 – The second big thing we must realize is that we should pray because Jesus prayed A TON, and if we claim to follow him, we must follow him in everything.

3- Lastly, because it works. This fact is important to know, but if your biggest motivation for growing in your prayer life is because it works and you want something, then your heart is in the wrong place.

Please, pray with me.

Father,

I thank you for adopting me as your child. I know there are things in my life that I can accomplish on my own, but I pray that you would just change my heart to rely on you instead of myself. Give me discipline, Father, to physically humble myself and drop to me knees daily in prayer. I desire to grow closer to you, but often I find myself neglecting to pray, though it’s one of the most intimate ways I can spend time with you. I need you, God. Rid me of myself, for I belong to you.

Amen