Does Prayer Work?

Prayer works, the preacher says, so come on up and we'll pray for your needs. The objection I have is that TM works and yoga works, but we don't try them. Just because something works doesn't mean it is true, that is not the criterion. Lee Strobel says that Christianity works because it is true, it is not true because it works.

We should pray even if we don't feel we are getting from God what we want, as it were, that he is our genie giving us what we want. We pray for the sake of praying says Steven Brown not for ulterior motives. Someone has wisely said that we should love God even if there were no heaven and fear God even if there were no hell. Well, we should have the desire to commune with God even if we don't get our way.

The paradigm of prayer should always include "in Jesus' name" (it is for his sake and God's will that we really want to pray). Now, some preachers think their prayers are more "effectual" (James. 5:16) than others but they are not. Any Christian can pray without giving up and "fervently" to get our wills aligned with God's. We don't change God, he changes us. You see, we are all on an equal footing in prayer--that is the beauty, God is no respecter of persons and shows no partiality.

Some say that worry works because 90 percent of what we worry about doesn't happen! Well, with that kind of logic prayer isn't as effective as worry because I don't think anyone can say that 90 percent of their prayers were answered in the affirmative--if they are, they are not very challenging prayers. God can answer in the affirmative, negative or tell us to wait. "Man ought always to pray and not to give up" (Luke 18:1). But we should never give up hope unless God clearly says no like he did to Paul's thorn in the flesh. But remember this: God has arranged it so that we can explain away answered prayers if we so desire--he doesn't force us to believe but wants faith to please him. Well, prayer does work but that is not why we pray!