Be Careful How You Pray

My heart is so heavy watching two good friends watch their newborn baby fight for her life.  People are praying for their sweet daughter all over the world, for God to intervene in what would at this point be a miraculous way.  

Meanwhile a friend from college posts that "prayer works" because they were able to sell their house in less than a day.

I feel sick.

How is it that we pretend to know the workings of God?  That if a "prayer" is answered in our favor, God is faithful... and if it's not, then what is God?  Where is God?  

I do believe there is a deeper purpose to prayer than God merely changing us.  I believe as co-laborers with Christ, we have a responsibility to pray for God to change things (and us) and that the Bible does show God intervening differently due to man's petition: Abraham asking God to save Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses asking Him not to destroy the Israelites, Hezekiah being healed and getting to live another 15 years. 

I believe we should pray with faith, ask God for what we want, be honest about where we're at.  But when the answer, or lack thereof, comes back, let's please not attribute it to God being a certain way, as if His character can change dependent upon our circumstances.  Our faith cannot be defined by seeing the results we want in this world. 

Pray doesn't "work" or "not work."  We are not kids putting coins into candy machines and waiting for a favorable result; we are partnering with the Creator of the universe in a purpose far beyond what we are capable of perceiving.  And yes, that is crazy, and doesn't make sense when you try to figure it out with our own limited knowledge, but that is the point.  It is faith.  

If your prayers are answered the way you want, praise God.  If they aren't, praise God.  If we are truly praying prayers of faith, our response can only ever be gratitude to the God that hears our prayers and has the power to use every response, or lack thereof, for our good. 

Please continue to pray, to believe in prayer, to lean on a fellow believer when you start to doubt the power of it (This is why we were made for community....), to ask God for the miracles and mundane, and to grow your faith and relationship with Him through the interaction and events that take place because of that prayer.  I pray, for you and for me, that our prayers for others and all the good, bad, and ugly things in our lives that we are lifting up would only impel us to live more grateful lives of true faith in our Father.