Good Afternoon! 
So here is the second part of my Ponderings About Prayer...
These past few months I have been wondering: when we have a prayer request, why do we often try to get as many people to pray for us as possible?
As soon as we have an urgent need, we send out "The Alert": we leave notices on Facebook; we text our friends and family; we put our requests into the prayer box at church and ask anyone and everyone who will listen to please pray for (whatever need we are bringing before God.)
But WHY is it, exactly that we do this? I'm not aware of any passage in the Bible that says, "When you have a concern to bring to your heavenly Father, bring along as many people as possible to ask with you." (But, as always, please feel free to post passages that address this issue, because I may have very well missed something.) After all, God tells us He knows our needs even before we ask Him. So why do we feel the need to take as many others as we can find?
The reason I ask is because I wonder if it's because of the motivation behind it: do we think that if we have more people praying for or with us, the louder our call to heaven will be, and the more likely God will hear -- and better yet -- answer all these prayers in our favor?
If not, why is it that when we have an urgent prayer request, we grab as many people as we can along the way?
Now, I am certainly NOT criticizing this AT ALL -- I know there are examples in the Bible of groups praying together -- I've just always wondered WHY we as believers feel a need to do this.
Since this is the Singles Forum, I'll try to use an example that most singles can relate to. In the past, I've known people who were going through a breakup or a bout of loneliness and would put out THE ALERT to anyone they could think of to please pray that they would find THE ONE GOD HAS FOR THEM -- and the urgency behind their request almost felt as if they believed that the more people they had praying, the sooner God would drop that miracle person right out of the sky in front of them.
I'm certainly not trying to make fun of anyone's requests, because I've thought that way myself in the past, and more times than I can count.
Many years ago, right before the United States entered into Desert Storm, our pastor believed that God was telling him if 1 million people would pray against it, the USA would not go to war.
But yet, we did. I will always wonder if : 1. the pastor had been wrong, or 2. God couldn't find a million believers to pray this.
I have always wondered how many times God offers a "bargain" as He did to Abraham -- if God could find just 10 believers in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, He would spare them. But 10 were not found, and they were not spared.
Does this have something to do with why we ask others to pray for us? (I understand that passage that says, "Where 2 or 3 are gathered in My Name" -- Matthew 18:20), but is it stories like this that seem to give us a feeling that the more people we have repeating our prayer to God, the more it's going to put our prayers on God's Priority List, and will more likely be answered in the way that we want?
(I know that NONE of that is true, but I'm asking, why, on some level, do we still seem to believe this?)
And if this isn't the reason why you personally ask friends and family to pray with you, please tell us why.
I am really looking forward to hearing how other people view/interpret this pattern of spiritual behavior.
So here is the second part of my Ponderings About Prayer...
These past few months I have been wondering: when we have a prayer request, why do we often try to get as many people to pray for us as possible?
As soon as we have an urgent need, we send out "The Alert": we leave notices on Facebook; we text our friends and family; we put our requests into the prayer box at church and ask anyone and everyone who will listen to please pray for (whatever need we are bringing before God.)
But WHY is it, exactly that we do this? I'm not aware of any passage in the Bible that says, "When you have a concern to bring to your heavenly Father, bring along as many people as possible to ask with you." (But, as always, please feel free to post passages that address this issue, because I may have very well missed something.) After all, God tells us He knows our needs even before we ask Him. So why do we feel the need to take as many others as we can find?
The reason I ask is because I wonder if it's because of the motivation behind it: do we think that if we have more people praying for or with us, the louder our call to heaven will be, and the more likely God will hear -- and better yet -- answer all these prayers in our favor?
If not, why is it that when we have an urgent prayer request, we grab as many people as we can along the way?
Now, I am certainly NOT criticizing this AT ALL -- I know there are examples in the Bible of groups praying together -- I've just always wondered WHY we as believers feel a need to do this.
Since this is the Singles Forum, I'll try to use an example that most singles can relate to. In the past, I've known people who were going through a breakup or a bout of loneliness and would put out THE ALERT to anyone they could think of to please pray that they would find THE ONE GOD HAS FOR THEM -- and the urgency behind their request almost felt as if they believed that the more people they had praying, the sooner God would drop that miracle person right out of the sky in front of them.
I'm certainly not trying to make fun of anyone's requests, because I've thought that way myself in the past, and more times than I can count.
Many years ago, right before the United States entered into Desert Storm, our pastor believed that God was telling him if 1 million people would pray against it, the USA would not go to war.
But yet, we did. I will always wonder if : 1. the pastor had been wrong, or 2. God couldn't find a million believers to pray this.
I have always wondered how many times God offers a "bargain" as He did to Abraham -- if God could find just 10 believers in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, He would spare them. But 10 were not found, and they were not spared.
Does this have something to do with why we ask others to pray for us? (I understand that passage that says, "Where 2 or 3 are gathered in My Name" -- Matthew 18:20), but is it stories like this that seem to give us a feeling that the more people we have repeating our prayer to God, the more it's going to put our prayers on God's Priority List, and will more likely be answered in the way that we want?
(I know that NONE of that is true, but I'm asking, why, on some level, do we still seem to believe this?)
And if this isn't the reason why you personally ask friends and family to pray with you, please tell us why.
I am really looking forward to hearing how other people view/interpret this pattern of spiritual behavior.
-
3
-
1
- Show all
