Prayer was something I never questioned.
If I prayed about something and it happened I would say thank you and if nothing happened I would just assume it wasn't meant to be.
I never put a lot of thought into prayer…I just did it because you were supposed to bring things to God through prayer.
My senior year of college I was in my capstone class, which is the last class in your major before you graduate.
My class was Psychology and Christianity…a fancy way to say we were learning how to integrate our faith into our psychology practice.
One day my professor posed this question:
If there are two women who are pregnant, one is a Christian who prayers for her baby everyday and the other woman isn't a Christian and doesn't pray for her baby, does the baby who was prayed over have a better chance at being born healthy than the baby who wasn't prayed over?
For the first time in my life I was actually thinking about prayer and if I actually think it works.
My mind went in a million different directions….
Of course the baby would have a better chance of being healthy because prayer works.
Wait that doesn't seem fair, babies are so innocent and can't help if they are prayed for.
Doesn't God already have a plan set out? How can prayer change something that is already set?
Is prayer just about me being obedient and God helping me make sense of this life.
I doubted prayer…I wasn't sure if I bought it.
That question was posed a year and a half ago and I have struggled with it every day and as I sit in Pretoria, South Africa on a missions trip(you would think I fully believed prayer) I am still struggling with it.
I mean why should I pray if it isn't going to do anything?
Last night I sought out to find the answer so that I could just know what I think about prayer and stop struggling with it.
I frantically flipped through my Bible and ready anything and everything I could find about prayer.
I found two things that really stuck out to me.
The first one is that Jesus prayed.
That should be a good enough reason for me to buy prayer. I mean if Jesus prayed then I sure as heck need to pray, but I am stubborn and I wanted more then that.
The second is that I found countless verses and teachings in the Bible that talk about prayer and the power that it has to change things.
I am not just talking one or two verses….I am talking TONS of verses talking about our need to pray, the power that prayer has and the fact that Jesus not only hears but he answers our prayers.
This two are my favorites.
James 5:16….The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
Luke 11:9-10….Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
My prayers are powerful and effective!
I wish I could say that my doubts about prayer have been completely laid to rest, but I still have tons of questions and can be skeptical at times.
But there are two things that I am very sure of, Jesus is the best example I have to look at when it comes to how to live my life and that the Bible is full of nothing but truth.
So I am choosing to believe in those things and pray that my doubts will be entirely buried and replaced with the true belief that prayer is powerful and makes a difference.
(Our caravan on the safari)
