January 15th

"Waiting for an answer to prayer is often part of the answer."

In the daily bread it used the word "helplessness" and while I understand how it fits I don't like the word in reference to prayer because when I pray I feel anything but helplessness. To me a better word would be surrendered. In my life I had a prayer warrior who taught me to see believe in and see the power of prayer (mom). Prayer is a cultivated relationship with God. I think, no I know that if it was not for prayer and people praying for me I would not have survived Jr. High or High School. Okay so I might have survived but I would not have thrived and I might be jaded.

James 5:16 talks about confessing to one another and praying for one another. Whenever I read James this is the verse that stands out to me. While I can lift someone else up in prayer I have a hard time asking others to pray for me.

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.

Point being, we should always pray, regardless of our current cirsumstances (see yesterday's message).

But does “effective” and “fervent” mean the harder we pray, or the more people we ask to pray, the more likely God is to answer with a yes? I’ve had enough “no” and “wait” answers to wonder about that.

What a crazy world this would be if ALL prayers were answered with a "yes!"

I really haven't flaked out. Yesterday I posted between Tricia and Keith. It lasted about 5 minutes and then was gone. I will try again today.
Prayer is amazingly powerful and for many reasons beyond just the answer you receive.
First of all it brings you closer to God. It has to because to really pray you have to surrender yourself to God.
While it can be difficult to ask someone to pray for you, as Tricia stated, I must say I have been very blessed by joining together with friends in praying for one another. When you do this it really creates a bond and through that bond your relationship and fellowship can grow. Also when you have shared a need for prayer with someone and there is a yes answer they can celebrate that answered prayer with you and they too are blessed. That celebration is a form of worship. By not sharing those requests with others you cheat them out of the opportunity of celebrating your blessing with you.
I have to share a story about group prayer with you from my childhood because it was so powerful to everyone that was there,though we have been reminded many times over the years that these type of prayers are not always answered with a yes.
When I was a young girl growing up on the farm many of the farmers in Bakersfield were really hurting from a severe drought. Because we had been months without rain and there seamed to be no hope insight there was desperation among the farmers in our congregation. So they called for a special prayer meeting one week night at our church. Many of us gathered together to plead with God to send rain. That night as we began to walk out of the church the rain Came down. It rained and rained and rained. I'm not sure if the biggest blessing that night was the much needed rain itself or if it was what that yes answer did for those who witnessed it and then for those who heard about it in the years to come.
As a side note remember that the our requests are only one portion of prayer . Praying in a group where they only focus on adoration is powerful also. But that's for another posting.

While reading today's message I couldn't help thinking of mom (Sheri) teaching 1st grade Sunday School all these years. I remember a lesson on prayer where she was trying to get the kids to understand that God does not always say "yes" but sees the entire life. I thought it was so clever that she compared answer to prayers to a traffic light. Sometimes we get a red light (no), a yellow light (wait, not right now), or a green light (yes). It was such a simple and cute way to convey this concept to little kids.

I love everyone's posts!

The ODB today made me think of all the times we prayed in small groups for someone's healing. I got kinda frustrated at how we often treat prayer as a 4th-quarter-hail-mary. I started asking many what-ifs like "what if God wants them to have cancer" and "what if God wants them to die because of all the good along the way?" Those are tough questions, but then my prayers started sounding like a muslim adding "if it's God's will" to the end of everything. What it lacked was the honesty and directness of the relationship part y'all mentioned.

The part that can boggle the mind is that we can be in relationship with God, have faith, ask earnestly, ask boldly, persevere, be surrendered to His will, ask for something seemingly in line with His will, and the answer can still be "no."

I know that boggle the mind part that Keith is speaking of (very early this morning). I wonder how often we are looking for the yes answer we want for our need right now but God is looking ahead to how the answer is going to affect us or someone else's future. He sees how it all plays out together with all the pieces of life. It still doesn't make it any easier for us to understand.