Why Should I Pray?

In 1986 I was in sixth grade, in Mrs. Rolfes’s social studies class. The year before that, President Ronald Reagan laid out his “Strategic Defense Initiative.” I remember hearing a lot about Mikhail Gorbachev and hearing the words Star Wars associated with President Reagan’s plan. Something about a global shield to neutralize nuclear weapons. My imagination was running wild.

Mrs. Rolfes told us we could write a letter to President Reagan to share any ideas that might help. I took this assignment seriously. I went home, tore a page out of my notebook, and drew a picture of a tank, along with instructions, directly addressed to our nation’s commander in chief. I had arrows and descriptions indicating which button lowered the beds for the tank drivers to sleep in, which button deployed the oil slick behind the tank, obviously to immobilize pursuing enemies, and which buttons triggered missiles, lasers, and flame throwers, respectively. I pictured President Reagan opening that letter, marching into the war room, slapping it on the table, and saying, “Build this!” I hoped he would name it “Gorbie’s Worst Nightmare.”

Here’s the crazy part. I got a note back from the White House thanking me for writing. Who knew my tank drawing would make it all the way to the Oval Office! I was intolerable for days. In reality, I’m pretty sure my tank never made it into any war-room conversations. But that’s not the point. I share the story because I’m still amazed that I sent a note from Elmwood Parkway to the most powerful office in the world, and it actually got there.

Friend, prayer is a far more awesome prospect. The God who is enthroned in heaven, sovereign over the nations, all-knowing, blindingly pure, and unspeakably holy is there when you pray. And he’s listening.

We could go further back into the Old Testament and watch the story of Moses unfold. Young Moses was reared in the courts of Pharaoh. He grew up learning the names and the ways of the gods of Egypt. Then God revealed himself to Moses and called him to rescue the people of Israel. When Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt, he began to introduce them to the one true, living God. Moses set God apart from the collection of Egyptian deities: “For what great nation is there that has a god near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him?” (Deut 4:7).

The great prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, said this about prayer: “Prayer pulls the rope down below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. He who communicates with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously with all his might” (Spurgeon, Quotable Spurgeon, 178). We think and speak too modestly about prayer.

God Is Gracious and Provides

Psalm 65:9-13

When I was a kid, we sang a song that helped with some of the Hebrew names of God. I don’t know if we pronounced them correctly, but we would sing about Jehovah Tsidkenu—the Lord our Righteousness; Jehovah Nissi—the Lord our Banner; Jehovah Rapha—the Lord our Healer; Jehovah Shalom—the Lord our Peace; and Jehovah Jireh—the Lord our Provider. Think about those names for a minute and realize, everything we need as weak and sinful people, living in a world filled with difficulties and hardships, God supplies. We need righteousness; he’s got it for us. We need protection. We need peace. He is everything we need. Martin Luther famously said, “God is mine; everything is mine.”

Starting in verse 9, God is seen as providing for and sustaining his creation. The rain we need for the fields, for crops to grow—where will it come from? God brings the growth. God clothes the hills with joy. Words that capture God’s beneficence and generosity carry these verses along as God abundantly enriches, fills, softens, blesses, soaks the channels, overfills carts with plenty, carpets the hills with joy. What’s the joy spoken of here? Verse 13 says it’s flocks and grain. This isn’t just God being good to creation for its own sake. Verse 9 says, “You prepare the earth in this way, providing people with grain” (emphasis added). In God’s kind providence, he cares about our everyday needs, our physical sustenance.

In the New Testament, when Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he invited them (and us) to ask for physical provisions: “Give us today our daily bread” (Matt 6:11).

Taken together we have, in God’s Word, an open invitation to bring all our cares to God. Peter urged Christians to cast “all your cares on him, because he cares about you” (1 Pet 5:7). James wrote, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God” (Jas 1:5). He gives that too! And Paul says, “Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything” (Phil 4:6 CEV).

Charles Spurgeon said, “If you may have everything by asking in his name, and nothing without asking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital prayer is” (Spurgeon’s Sermons, 28: 1882). What an incentive we have to pray!

God Is Worthy and Satisfies

Psalm 65:1-13

The greatest gift God gives us in prayer is himself. This psalm centers on God’s worth and intervening grace. Right out of the starting blocks, David says, “Praise is rightfully yours.” Then there is an unbroken series of “you” statements, featuring God as the one who hears (v. 2), atones (v. 3), chooses and brings near and satisfies (v. 4), answers and gives hope (v. 5), is robed with strength (v. 6), silences the roar of the seas (v. 7), brings joy (v. 8), and abundantly provides for his creation (vv. 9-13). This passage pulls God into focus. Martin Luther said, “Prayer is climbing up into the heart of God” (“Of Prayer”). To put it another way, prayer is a means by which God brings us in close.

Whether we always feel it at a conscious or emotional level, when we come before God in prayer, we leave with an imprint on the soul. Something of his delights, his compassion, his joy becomes ours, in a unique way, when we pray.

My father planted a church in New Orleans before I was born. He died when he was only forty-five years old (I was twelve), but while he lived, he had a contagious joy in Christ and love for people. I could tell stories all day, but no area of my dad’s life was more compelling than his life of prayer. How often I caught him reading Scripture and praying! Especially after we went to sleep. I could see the lamp on down the hall and could hear him whispering his prayers, praising God, and mentioning us and others by name, sometimes praying with great emotion.

After dad died, my mom told me, “Your dad used to say he didn’t want his entrance into heaven to be like someone running into a brick wall. He wanted to live so close to God that death was like tearing through tissue paper.” I have never known someone to be in such a continual state of prayer as my dad.

Prayer is oxygen for the Christian. That’s why the moment you believe, God sends his Spirit to live inside you, and the Spirit’s first order of business, according to Paul, is to create a cry in your heart that says, “Abba, Father!” (Rom 8:15). He comes and tells you and me, “You can call him Father now! And you can bring everything to him!”

Now, all of this hinges on the perfect work of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, died in our place on the cross, and rose again, all who turn to Christ for hope and life are saved. We’re washed clean of sin and guilt. We’re brought into God’s forever family. From then on, we live in the good of Jesus’s perfect standing before God. The throne of judgment becomes to us a throne of grace. Jesus taught, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). That same Jesus is the one who makes real prayer possible.

Why pray? The God who rescues and who graciously provides for us, the God who is worthy and satisfies his people with abundant grace, is listening when we pray. What a privilege!

Reflect and Discuss