Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Feb/89

Contributor - Rev. Tom Welscott

Title - Does Prayer Help?

Topic - Prayer

Does Prayer Help? Everyone has their own answer to that question. As your mind relates various past experiences to that question you will probably zero in on two kinds of answers. The first might be somewhat theoretical, and the second from the existential level.

From the first level we respond intellectually to how easy we think it should be, or perhaps the way that we have always conceived it to be. So when we are confronted with the question, "Does Prayer Help?" we say, "Yes, of course it does. As long as you believe, and pray in faith God hears you." At this level we often function habitually without experiencing some of the deeper levels of prayer.

What are our deeper thoughts and convictions about the question, "Does Prayer Help?" That brings us to what we are experiencing existentially as we deal with life and its vast range of emotions and experiences. Are we able to prove to the sceptic that God indeed does hear our prayers and answer them? Proving that kind of thing to a sceptic is virtually impossible. We can, however, state our own experience of God as we know Him to be. It is our experience that is also reinforced throughout the Bible as men and women prayed to their God and received answers.

How Powerful Is Your God?

It is our concept of who we know our God to be that will determine how we pray, and how much prayer does help. What is your God really like? Can you see Him? Can you touch Him? Can you tell me about Him? To illustrate two different situations where there was a deep conviction that prayer does help let us consider Daniel in the Old Testament and Peter in the New Testament.

Many of us are familiar with the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den from those Bible stories in Sunday School, but do you remember what brought him to the lion's den? It was his conviction that PRAYER DID HELP that landed him in this rather precarious situation. When we first learn about Daniel, he had been hand picked, along with other young Jewish men, to be groomed for leadership in that strange country where they had been taken as exiles. Daniel's first step of faith was to continue the kind of diet that he was used to and not eat the rich food of the king.

The real test for Daniel came when the king wanted everyone to worship him - the king. He made it illegal to pray to God. Daniel had certain convictions about prayer. Every day, three times a day, he would open up the windows of his house toward Jerusalem and pray to his God. He knew his God so well, that even the threat of death by the king did not deter his commitment.

Did Prayer Help? The punishment for the kind of disobedience that Daniel chose when he insisted on remaining faithful to his beliefs, was to be thrown into a cave full of hungry lions. In answer to his prayers God sent an angel and closed the mouths of the lions.

Prayer In The New Testament Church

In the book of Acts we learn of another very dramatic answer to prayer. In Acts chapter 12 we learn how the king, at that time, was starting to become very violent toward the rapidly growing followers of Jesus Christ. The violent King Herod, had just killed James, and discovered that the Jews were thrilled. With that kind of response he proceeded to arrest Peter with plans to kill him during the Jewish feast of Pentecost. As this is being described in Acts 12, listen to what verse 5 says is happening, "So Peter was kept in prison; but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church."

Peter was sitting in the deepest part of the prison with four guards surrounding him. There was no human way that he could get out, but there was a whole house full of people praying. God saw fit to send an angel, put the guards to sleep, and let Peter out.

YES, PRAYER DOES HELP! We know how all powerful our God is, when we have experienced it firsthand. We don't always get the things that we want, but each encounter brings us to a deeper understanding of how personally concerned our God is in all aspects of our life.

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