Praying for Answers
Pursuing Effective Prayer - Part One
“The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.” James 5:16
How do you feel about the quality of your prayer life?
Here’s how I feel about mine: I believe that prayer matters, even if I don’t always pray well. The deep instinct of my soul turns to prayer when my emotions overflow or circumstances lunge out of my control. Sometimes my prayers feel dry, forced, confused, or powerless. I also worry that selfish motives contaminate my prayers, draining them of effectiveness. At times, I feel uncertain what to pray when I’m not sure what God has planned.
“I want confidence that my prayers mean more than hopeful wishes or vague goodwill. ”
Yet I still yearn for the right kind of prayers, the way Jesus taught us to pray. I want to honor his invitation for prayers that heal, meet needs with abundance, and bring heaven’s reality to earth. I want to obey his instructions to ask, seek, and knock; so that I receive, find, and doors open.
I want confidence that my prayers mean more than hopeful wishes or vague goodwill. I want prayers with real answers—for myself and those I pray for.
I find myself in pursuit of effective prayer.
The Journey Begins
As an ordinary follower of Jesus, I began my prayer journey by reciting prayers at bedtime, grace at meals, the Lord’s Prayer, and Psalm 23. In the turbulence of adolescence, I transitioned to talking with God as the Perfect Parent or Friend. In the complexities of adulthood, I turned to him as Counselor and Provider. I expounded at length about my desires, pains, and longings. I flung handfuls of prayers skyward like hopeful letters to heaven—sometimes “sealed with a kiss,” but more often soggy with tears.
Although I felt a lack of vitality and low success in tangible answers, I kept at it. For many years, “improve in prayer” appeared on my New Year’s resolution list, along with paying off debt and exercising more. With a determination fueled by my resolute Dutch heritage, I became a stubborn pray-er. I figured that if my prayers failed, it wouldn’t be from lack of trying on my end.
“As our hearts seek after God, he infuses each step with transforming grace, no matter how clumsy our attempts.”
Fortunately, God can refine stubbornness into the more biblical virtue of earnest pursuit. As our hearts seek after God, he infuses each step with transforming grace, no matter how clumsy our attempts. He rejoices at our efforts, like the loving father holding arms open wide to catch the wobbly toddler lunging toward him. As we lock our eyes on him and persevere, he guides us in building our understanding and skill.
Help from a Mentor
Mentors can provide valuable guidance in applying spiritual truths to our practical experience. By observing principles active in their lives, we see how they might fit into ours. We take courage knowing they conquered challenges and achieved successes. Mentors lead the way ahead by their steps in front of us—sometimes close by as living examples, and sometimes from their words recorded in history.
With that in mind, I began exploring the stories of those considered experts in prayer practice. I read their biographies to glean from their insights. How did they achieve the power, peace, and provision of God’s way of working through prayer? How did they reach consistency in direct answers? How did they manage silence or waiting? What practical actions guided their steps?
A Mentor Moment with George Müller
One worthy historical mentor, well-known for his extraordinary accomplishments through prayer, is George Müller. In the span of his sixty-year ministry caring for 10,000 orphans in England during the 1800s, he recorded almost 50,000 cases of distinct answers to specific prayers.
Müller had one overarching passion that fueled his life’s work: to prove that God hears our prayers and is trustworthy to meet our needs—without fail. To live out that proof, he held a rigid commitment to never solicit funds for their needs except through prayers to God.
He never received a salary. He never made a purchase (whether a loaf of bread or the construction of a new orphanage) without the funds in hand. The only time he advertised to the public for any need was when he requested more orphans to care for. The provision of every material resource relied on God alone. During the sixty years of Müller’s exclusive dependence on prayer, the total money received and spent reached almost 1.5 million British pounds.
While we might be tempted to dismiss his exceptional example as beyond our reach, hear the testimony of his close friend and biographer:
“Here was a man of like passions as we are and tempted in all points like as we are, but who believed God…who prayed earnestly that he might live a life and do a work which should be a convincing proof that God hears prayer and that it is safe to trust Him at all times…” (Emphasis added.)
While God may not call us to the same work as Müller, we can be encouraged that he was an ordinary person, just like you and me, who accomplished the extraordinary through prayer.
First Principles of Effective Prayer
Fascinated by Müller’s story, I leaned in to discover the specific practices leading to his effective prayers. I found his treasure chest full of wisdom on topics such as believing and prevailing prayer; how to manage hindrances, delays, and denials; and the impact of humility, holiness, trust, and surrender. I look forward to unpacking those details with you in the future.
In the meantime, I leave you with a starting point, the foundational principles for Müller’s power-filled prayers:
Protect the priority of your personal communion with God.
Pray with your faith secured by God’s promises.
Pray with power by trusting God’s love and depending on the Holy Spirit’s work.
Pray continually and persistently without giving in to discouragement.
George Müller achieved consistently effective and God-glorifying prayer by ordering his life according to one fundamental secret:
“…the chief business of every day is first of all to seek to be truly at rest and happy in God.”
That God-centered relationship forms our prayers rightly. It creates the kind of extraordinary prayer life that God desires as the ordinary experience for all his people. And it is the place we must all begin.
What do you want most from your prayer life right now?
Source Text: Pierson, A.T. George Müller of Bristol. London: Pickering & Inglis, 1899.
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