As you know, prayer is the lifting of our minds to God, with or without words, in order to get to know him, to love him and to do his will.  It therefore includes adoration, thanksgiving and confession of sin, as well as asking.  Today we are going to think about prayer in the sense of asking for this or that.

Right and wrong prayer

People can be divided roughly into two groups: those who believe in this kind of prayer and those who do not.  The people who believe that it is useless to ask God for anything, think – quite wrongly – that prayer means asking God for what we want to happen; but those who believe the opposite are the ones who know that prayer means asking for what God wants to happen.

What God wants

Think of it like this: imagine that there two cupboards, each of which is locked.  The first cupboard is labelled “What God wants”; the second, “What you want”.  Now prayer is the key which opens the first cupboard, what God wants; but it will not open the second cupboard, so it is no good trying.  God will not give you what you want unless it also happens to be the same as he wants for you.  In the Lord’s Prayer (the Our Father) we say to God, “Thy will be done”, meaning, “Do what you know to be best”, and that should always be the thought in our minds when we ask God for something.

God knows best

There is one thing we must get firmly into our heads and it is this: God knows far better than we do what is best for us, and he is waiting to give it to us.  And not only that, he will also see that we get it, provided that we go to him and pray for it.  You may wonder why we have to ask God for anything since he knows what we ought to have.  The reason is that, although God gives us much without being asked, there are some things which he wishes us to have but waits for us to seek them from him first.  These things he will give us only if we go to him and ask him.

God puts first things first

But of one thing you can be absolutely sure: you can trust God completely to give you what is best for you to have.  Remember, God loves you far more than you love yourself.  We may pray for good fortune only to find ourselves having to go through a bad time instead.  Well, from that bad time God can give us, in answer to our prayers, some good thing which we would not otherwise have had.  And as a result we find that we trust and love him much more than we did before and so have been brought that much nearer to him.  And the nearer we get to God in this life, the nearer we shall be to Heaven when this life is over.  God always puts first things first.  He is much more interested in us than in our possessions; much more interested in what we are than in what we have.

Listening to God

Now it is through praying to God that we come to know what we ought to have and ought to be.  We may start off by thinking that God ought to give us this and do that, but after a time we begin to see that God thinks very differently and we find ourselves coming round to his point of view and praying for what he really wants to give us.  For in prayer we not only talk to God but he also talks to us by putting his thoughts into our minds.  It is like an escalator working on an endless belt.  The only steps that go up to the top are the ones that have come down unseen from the top.  So the only prayers that God will answer are the ones which he himself has given us to pray.  Therefore we should be like the child Samuel who, when he heard God’s voice calling him in the shrine at Shiloh, said, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (NRSV, 1 Samuel: 3,10).  We should not behave as if we have nothing to learn from God and take up the attitude, “Listen, for your servant is speaking”. (1)

Praying for others

Working with God

Let’s think now about what happens when we pray for someone who is ill.  What our prayers do is to call down God’s healing and strengthening power upon that person.  Remember, God likes to work with us human beings in bringing about good and he expects us to be active in working with him to help other people.  One of the ways we do this is by praying for them.  Even if they do not get better, we know that through our prayers they will be soothed and brought nearer to God.  If we are not sure exactly what to pray for, we should just bring them before God in our prayers and lift them up to him.  The same is true of when we pray for someone who is sad or anxious.  God will hear our prayers and through them the person will receive the support that he or she needs.  So in our prayers we are not trying to persuade God to do something he would not otherwise have done – we are sharing in his loving work and allowing him to use us to bring about his will for others.  As the saintly Julian of Norwich wrote, “…He (God) beholdeth us in love and would make us partners of His good deed, and therefore He stirreth us to pray for that which it pleaseth him to do”. (2)

Prayer and action

Often we shall pray for people whom we do not know – perhaps people injured in a rail crash – and we can be sure that God hears our prayers and will help them.  But sometimes we shall pray for people we do know who are ill, or sad or worried.  In these cases it may be that our prayers for them will lead us to take some further action, such as visiting them in hospital or sending a Get Well card, or simply saying a kind word to someone who is sad.  In all of these ways we are working with God, that his will may be done.

Our intercessions

Being organised

When we say our evening prayers, therefore, we should pray to God for our relations and friends and ask him to bless them.  We should also remember those who are ill, or homeless or hungry.  In order to do this properly and not to miss out anyone whom we ought to pray for, it is a good idea to write out a list for each day of the week.  We shall put some people down to pray for every day, others perhaps only once a week.  Remember also to pray for the Church, both here and overseas.  And don’t forget to write down the names of your relations who may have died, and ask God to give them refreshment, light and peace.

If we hear news of some disaster on the radio or see it on the television – perhaps an earthquake or famine – we can silently on the spot ask God to help the people who are suffering.

For prayer for other people, or intercession as it is also known, is one of the surest ways in which we can really help them and do them good.

SUMMARY

1. In prayer we do not ask God for what we want, but for what he wants to do.  Prayer will give us only what God wants us to have, and by praying we learn what that is.

2. When we pray for people in need, we call down God’s healing and strengthening power upon them and so share in his loving work and allow him to use us to bring about his will for others.

3. We should make a list of people to pray for each evening, not forgetting our departed relations.

References

1. Clements, B. (1939) When ye pray, London: Student Christian Movement Press.

2. Julian of Norwich (A.D. 1373) Revelations of Divine Love, ninth edition edited by Warrack, G. (1927) London: Methuen.