Powerful Prayers

About ten years ago, I was driving on the highway on my way home from visiting a friend. For years I prayed that God would open her eyes to His love and that she would acknowledge her need for Jesus and accept the sacrifice He made for her on the cross. But time passed, and nothing changed. I was frustrated. I was disappointed. Didn’t God hear me? Didn’t God want my friend to be saved? I was not (still am not) the most eloquent speaker or most knowledgeable Christian, but I was trying to witness to her. So why did God not answer?

My frustration grew while I drove in the dark. The more I thought about our conversations, the more I thought about the verses I shared, all the sermons she had sat through because I asked her to, the more I thought about how she was so close to seeing the truth! I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and yelled, “Why won’t You save her?!”

In Romans 8:26, Paul talks about how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us when we are weak, and don’t have the right words to say. “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” I felt that verse that night. I had no more words but I believed the Holy Spirit would help me. I believed God would understand me. I prayed, “God, do whatever you have to do. Please.”

Later I saw that I had prayed a powerful and dangerous prayer. I watched over the next months as God chipped away and broke down parts of my friend’s life. It was a hard season and I was terrified of what I had done in asking God to do whatever He could to draw her to Him. Maybe I should have phrased the prayer more gently? Maybe I shouldn’t have been yelling it in the car. Maybe I was asking too much too fast. Of course God knew her heart best, and I praise God that today I can call her a sister in Christ.

To be honest, based on what God brought into her life, I ended up wrestling with how God answered my prayer. Have you ever wrestled with how God answered prayer in your life, or in the waiting for a clear answer?

The moment you pray for more patience, and the next week ends up being full of obstacles and trials. It shows you how little patience you have. But maybe that is one way God grows patience in us, by placing us in moments again and again until we choose to show his love instead of act out in our sinful nature. Or the day after you ask God to give you more boldness to share the gospel, and the next day you’re on a flight sitting next to a friendly stranger who starts a conversation with you.

Does this mean we should be fearful about praying the wrong thing? Or fear that God will give us too much for us to handle in response to asking to be more like Him? No. We serve a good God who cares about us and who wants us to speak with Him. We rejoice and we go to him in prayer humbly, knowing we can because Jesus made a way for us.

There are all sorts of prayers. There are prayers for prodigals to return home. Prayers for the hoped for, but not yet future. Prayers for children to sleep in just a little longer next Saturday morning. There are prayers of thanks and praise after seeing God work with more grace and love than we deserve.

God hears them all.

I challenge us to pause and think about the past year and think about the prayers God has answered. If you can, make a list of how you have seen God work in your life. Include “big” moments and “little” moments. Let this be an encouragement to continue to pray, for we pray to a powerful God who listens.