Troublesome Topic: ARE MOST OF OUR PRAYER REQUESTS TRUE PRAYER?

If we are honest with ourselves, most of the things shared as prayer requests are actually favors we want from God. Too often a list of prayer requests is a list of everyone we know who is sick. Other times it is a list of problems we are having that we want God’s help with, be it medical, financial, relational or otherwise. Few of our prayer requests focus on the “big picture” of what God wants to do in the hearts of men. Most of our prayer requests focus on us.

We need to change the way we pray and seek a prayer life that puts God at the center instead of self.

Please do this mental exercise with me. Think of the top handful of politicians who, in your opinion, are causing the most damage to your country. Write down their names. Now think of the top handful of prominent people, be it actors and actresses, athletes or musicians, who are using their considerable influence to guide people deeper into sin. Write down their names. Now think of the prominent people in this world whom you consider to be downright evil. If you have not written their names already, write them on your list at this time. Add to your list people who were well-known Christian leaders but have fallen into sin or rejected their faith in Christ. One more group – write down the names of people you know personally and have contact with regularly that you don’t like, or you find it hard to get along with. Now look at your list and ask yourself, “Have I ever prayed for any of these people, of have I just complained about them?” Some Christians have prayed for bad people and people they don’t like, but many have never considered doing so. Yet this is what we should be doing! Asking God to draw them, to call them, to woo them to himself in powerful ways is true prayer. And when we pray for people regularly it changes how we think of them. We will begin to see them, not as bad people, but as people for whom Christ died. We will become perceptive of their spiritual and emotional needs. Prayer brings us in line with the mind of God because true prayer must agree with God’s expressed will.

Our times of prayer, alone and with others, should involve so much more than praying about our problems and for people who are sick. We should lift up those who are being witnesses for Christ in hostile settings, ask God to call to Himself people we know who are not following Him, pray for Christian leaders who have big targets on their backs, pray that the church would be the church as He desires it to be, lift up our pastor and other spiritual leaders we know, pray for Christian fathers to step up and be the kind of leaders that their homes need, pray by name for God to show well-known athletes, actors, and musicians their need for Him, pray for the spiritual condition of our relatives, neighbors and co-workers, ask God to draw our children closer to Him each day, and the list could go on and on. There are plenty of things to pray about that are close to the heart of God, fit within His clearly expressed will, and are things He has committed Himself to do.

The next lesson is: What about Prayer before Meals?