Prayer, Miracles...
what's going on here?
Disciples - how do you answer?

There it is - the method of prayer and the secret to successful miracles: belief. No belief, no resolution.
There is no room for hypocrisy here, disciple!

Too often, it is sad to say, prayer is offered to our Father as either an obligation or with words and repetitions that are meaningless. Oftimes there is no sincerity in our prayers. We either say them because we've been told to do so, or we just don't say prayers. We either have faith in our prayer offerings, or we don't. Some are deluded into thinking that if they say the same prayer words a thousand times, their prayers have one thousand times the efficacy. I say that our Father is not deaf, nor stupid, and does not welcome rote prayer. Isaiah 1: 15 states God's feelings on the matter quite well: "When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood." If repentance is genuine, those saying prayers will have their hands cleansed of blood thus negating the need of repetitive utterances of words. Prayers are answered only if there is belief, first, in place.

Over the years I have watched countless evangelical preachers and laity on television. I have yet to come across a single person who succinctly offers prayer to God. Those praying never get directly to the point, but instead go off on a tangent of concocting tedious vocal presentations with the intent, I suspect, of enjoying hearing themselves speak. What I have observed on television, I have also witnessed in many personally attended church services, and I have
come away with questions:

How many who offer lengthy, rambling prayers truly believe they will be answered? And, if they do believe they will be answered favorably, what takes place inside the Christian when God doesn't respond? Surely, we may legitimately ask, the disciples following Christ believed in the efficacy of their prayers to heal the boy above? And yet, their prayers were not answered. Or, getting to the core of Jesus' message, did the disciples really believe in prayer? Did they actually pray with belief over the boy?  Apparently not, because had they, the boy would have been cured. Another apparent observation we come away with is this: miracles come as the result of faith-driven prayer.  We are told above by Jesus that repetition of prayers is not the answer; for our Father knows beforehand what it is we seek in prayer. Formal, repetitive, wordy drawn out prayers are not what God is looking for from us.

What, exactly, is God looking for from us?

Look at the Psalm above. Read it again. Think on it before rebutting. Notice that David, the psalmist, firmly believes that he is talking with God as if He was right there next to him and the two of them were having a conversation. Pick up on the closeness, the intimacy between David and God. There's no distance between the two. Thus, there is no reason to continually repeat high-sounding words, and there's definitely no point in beating around the bush. Think about what you are saying to God, or as David says, 'ponder it and be still'. Let God get a word in edgewise. If you have a grievance with God, then present it with all the feeling in your heart. If you desire to thank God for your blessings, do so with the utmost sincerity. But get to the point!

And, when you do pray, first offer to God the respect due Him. "Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven..." Show God respect first, and then put forth your petition. We may be intimately close to our Father, but we are not on an equal footing with Him. God is, and forever will be, our superior and we must be aware of His rank at all times.

Yet, we are His children. You are His child. He loves us as no other father can love us. We can talk with our heavenly Father. We can be open and candid with Him. He listens to us, but only so if we show Him the respect He deserves. Repetition of prayer mantras dull our minds and spirit to the closeness of God. After all, how long could you listen to someone continuously repeating the same words time and time again? You'd tune them out and your thoughts would begin to drift as the other person babbles on and on. You'd quickly surmise the lack of sincerity behind their words.

Something that's evident from the television preachers especially is their penchant to wax overly dramatic. To watch some of these people it would appear to the non-Christian that praying is painful. I have always been suspicious that somewhere there exist academy awards for hyperbolic preachers who can take what should be a clear, direct prayer and turn it into a rendition of tormented human pageantry.  Their faces screw up into exaggerated masks, their arms and bodies flail about as if it was they who were the boy plagued by a demonic spirit. They strut back and forth across a stage praying and preaching as if, at that moment, they are acting the most difficult Shakespearian role. I see nothing in the Gospels that indicated that Jesus put on such exhibitions while praying. In fact, in the recounting of the healing of the boy in Matthew's gospel, and before a crowd gathered, Jesus quickly dispatched the demonic spirit so as to avoid notoriety.

Why do many of the television evangels carry on in such a way? It is because their audience wants them to. It's a form of entertainment and those preachers who know how to showboat gather in the largest crowds which, I am saddened to say, equates to a massive intake of audience donations of money. The audience worships the personality on the stage instead of God. Conversely, if the preacher puts on a boring presentation, his or her audience will be few. Many Christians today expect a good show for their money. They relish seeing a flamboyant televangelist effect immediate cures for the lame and sick who drag themselves up in front of the audience, verbally, pathetically presenting their lamentations to the preacher and then stand, or crawl, at the ready for a cure. And without fail, many of the bigger headliners will deliver just that - immediate miraculous cures! It's entertainment, friends, and a true disciple of Christ must never, never become involved in such shenanigans. God must never be mocked in a situation where He is expected to perform on demand. That is sin of a nature we are advised to best avoid at all costs. Do not tempt God! Jesus said to Satan, in response to the second temptation in the wilderness, "ouk ekpeiraseiV kurion ton Qeon sou. - Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

Community prayer is sanctioned by Scripture; for the church body to pray for an unfortunate suffering soul is always encouraged. Why? Because it works. But sincerity is the key and brevity is what promotes sincerity. My mother was near two years ago. She believed there was no way to escape the event. I talked with her on the telephone - as I was a thousand miles away at the time - and because she is a Roman Catholic, I offered a prayer to God in Latin; that was the language she was familiar with when dealing with spiritual matters. I offered the prayer as she was listening and when finished I said to her, "God now has your petition for recovery and there is no need to repeat it. Just believe in it." Within two days, her ill health had reversed itself and, I can report, mother lived a couple more years. Prayer does work, but you have to believe that it will, in fact, work.  But... what if your prayer isn't answered favorably?
What, you may ask, is going on?

The Government of God

Please understand that God's Creation is in continual operation; a continuum until the Creator deems otherwise. Life and death are the regime of that creation. All animal and plant life on earth comes and goes, and out of death comes life. So, too, from life death follows. Nothing carnal lives forever, and as our astrophysicists can plainly demonstrate to us, even the planets, solar systems and galaxies even are committed to a cycle of birth, death, birth. The power that orchestrates and maintains the life and death cycle of the Creation is the Word of God Himself. He has put the Creation into motion from the moment of its birth, and the entire organism of concrete life runs like the finest Swiss watch. There is order here and I call this order, the Government of God. But, it has to be emphasized again, we - and everything physical - must die and then be again born. What we are asking God to do when we pray to Him for a miracle is to nullify the prescribed action of his Creation. Is He willing to do this for us? Yes He is! Jesus proved it. But, by all that is holy, we must fervently believe in God when we go to Him in prayer, and we must just as fervently be prepared to be disappointed should it be God's Will that we not be granted our prayerful request.

Look again at what Jesus came back with above when the boy's father said, "... if you can do anything..." That single, simple plea was an insult and Jesus let it be known with his "What do you mean, 'If you can?' "; that not only was he insulted, but so also his Father.  Isaiah 38: 7 - 8 provides a proof that God is willing to intervene in the clockwork of the Creation:
"This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has promised: 'See, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.' So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined."
We also have from Jesus' hands alone numerous nature-abrogating miracles: Lazarus and others were raised from the dead. Out of a few loaves of bread and fishes came forth enough food to feed thousands. Jesus stilled the raging Sea of Galilee; the lame were made to walk, lepers cured, along with many other 'unnatural' miracles. Note, though, that it was belief within the sufferer, or a relative, that promoted the supernatural miracles wrought by Jesus in healing and resurrecting people. Through Jesus, God interfered with the running operation of His Creation, and it is because of our faith in Jesus the same asking and answering will be delivered to us because of our faith in prayer. We may not get the answer we're looking for, but in the end, as so often is the case, things we could not foresee work out for the better. We who pray must have faith that God knows what He's doing and we must be spiritually mature enough to accept His answer to our prayers no matter what it is. The Christian disciple knows and understands this, as must all Christians.

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©Copyright 2009 - Donald Neal McKay - The MISSION DISCIPLESHIP