Prayer...Does it really change anything?

Prayer. It's something that I just plain don't get. Now bear with me for a moment. I'll explain.

Earlier this year, I wrote about a book that we read in class called "The Celebration of Discipline." It was a challenging book in many ways with lots of good things to say, but I was frustrated by the chapter on prayer. It really broke open the topic of prayer in my mind and really, I just came up with all of these questions that I couldn't answer and it seemed that everyone around me had made peace with. Ugh...it just left me stuck.

I know that God's Word tells us to "pray continually" and that Jesus even prayed to His Father. God promises to listen to our prayers. Jesus even taught us how to pray. Paul's letters are filled with mentions of his prayers for people in churches all over. Moses called down God's power in prayer. We see how God responds to the prayers of His people over and over.

I don't get it.

Let's start with what prayer is not.
1. The point of prayer isn't to control God. He's not our vending machine or our butler. Prayer isn't our hotline to get whatever we want.
2. Prayer doesn't change who God is. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
3. Prayer isn't the formula to make God work; He works without our prayers. In Luther's Small Catechism it says, "certainly God's Kingdom comes with our prayers, but we pray in this petition that it might come to us also." So, God's still going to work in us and for us even if we don't ask for it.

In "Celebration of Discipline," however, it talks about how we shouldn't pray "if it be Your will" when we pray for things because we need to pray boldly with faith; knowing that God will grant our request. What about when we pray with confidence and what we pray for doesn't happen? What then? Okay, so the book suggests as we draw near to the heart of God, we grow closer to what His will is and can pray more and more boldy because our will lines up with His. My question would be, "why pray, then?" If it's going to come to pass anyway? Well, often when we pray, it brings us peace and an calming connection with our Father. Prayer isn't meant to change God, but our conversations with Him often change us. He commands us to pray...it's talking to our Daddy about our day. :) (But I'm still not going to pretend like I get it.)

Another question about prayer...what is intercessory prayer all about? I don't get that either. I've got to the point where I understand how prayer changes me, but when I'm praying for others, what does that do? If I'm not trying to change God and I know that His will is good and gracious, then why pray for people and situations? I just don't understand how it works. This became more and more sensitive to me as I grew closer to situations that desperately need prayer and people who really need protection. What does prayer do for them? Honestly, I have no idea.

I just got to a point where prayer seemed superfluous and something everyone did to make themselves look good. I wanted to want to pray...but I just felt like it didn't matter and it just made me more frustrated the more I thought about it. Wow, satan sure pulled one on me.

I do know one thing, however, since I have been on internship, I have seen God answer prayer in SO MANY huge ways. I can't tell you how many times within the last month that HUGE prayers have been answered. For example, the school wanted to serve hot lunch during the day but didn't have a commercial license for the kitchen. They were going to cater meals, but the inspector came in and said the kitchen was fine for commercial use. The next morning a woman randomly called the school saying that she had to be the school chef. Air conditioner problems that were supposed to take weeks to fix took only a few hours. At 10pm on the night before worship, God provided a guitar player to lead the praise team. After losing our music teacher, God laid it on my heart to fill the role and the next morning a mother came in and said she'd like to help with the music program! Things like this happen at Risen Savior all of the time! I can't get over it! God is teaching me so much...just over and over again He is teaching me that He is faithful. He whispers it to me through others, shows it to me throughout my day, and reads it to me in His Word.

God shows that He is faithful and He is always hanging on to me, even when I let go to cover my eyes at what is to come. Prayer is a vessel of His peace that passes all of our understand. Peace isn't the only thing that passes my understanding though...prayer in general is a mystery to me. I do know, however, that no matter how "faithful in prayer" I might be (or might not be), God is faithful. One of my favorite verses is from Hebrews 10:23:
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Always..with or without our prayers...He is faithful.