Is Prayer as Effective as Dialing 911?

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with
thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends
all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus."Philippians 4:6 "In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you
the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name."John 16:23

Putting Absolute Hope in Prayer

Prayer is mentioned so often in Scripture, as the link between man and God,
between creature and his Creator. In Scripture God promises to respond to the
urgent calls of His children. In Psalm 91:15,16 the psalmist confirms this
wonderful promise, "Because he loves me," says the Lord, "I will rescue him; I
will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will
answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him. With long life will
I satisfy him and show him my salvation." All the giants of the Christian faith
confirm that prayer is a crucial component in walking with Christ. They witness by
experience how many mighty miracles came about by fervent prayer. "The children of
God are not left alone and defenceless. Prayer moves the arm of Omnipotence.
Prayer has subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire- we shall know what it means when
we hear the reports of the martyrs who died for our faith." E.G. White, Christ's
Object Lessons, p.172. "Let all who are afflicted or injured or unjustly used, cry
to God. Turn away from those hearts of steel, and make your requests known to your
Maker. Never is one repulsed who come to Him with a humble heart. Not one sincere
prayer is lost. Amid the anthems of the celestial choir, God hears the cries of
the weakest human being. We pour out our heart's desire in our closets, we breathe
a prayer as we walk by the way, and our words reach the throne of the Monarch of
the universe. They may be inaudible to any human ear, but they cannot die away
into silence, nor can they be lost through the activities of business that are
going on. Nothing can drown the soul's desire. It rises above the din of the
street, above the confusion of the multitude, to the heavenly courts. It is God to
whom we are speaking, and our prayer is heard." E.G. White, Christ's Object
Lessons, p.174.

Prayer is Most Powerful in a Package

So here I sit, alone, surrounded by my set of insurmountable circumstances, and I
wonder if the prayers I pray will practically relieve or release me from all I
have to face. I have prayed so many prayers before and there seems to be no
answer. Surely if I put my absolute hope in prayer, I need some immediate relief.
When I lift up my aching or joyful heart to heaven, there are a few prerequisites
that I need to fully understand and accept in order to be able to have this
absolute hope that my prayer is heard, and that my prayer will be answered in a
way that will be the very best for me in the long term. These prerequisites to
making prayer really practical and really powerful have been written in detail in
other articles, but they are summarized below as follows. (Please click on each
one to study the subject in full):

1. Complete Forgiveness
Before bringing any request to God, the petitioner needs to go through a time of
thorough forgiveness--forgiveness from God to him or her, for sins that they have
committed, and then forgiving all people that have wronged them, hurt them, or
caused any anger or bitterness. Forgiveness is the password to be able to link
into the Divine Mainframe. Without it, our prayers are superficial and shallow,
and we are easily distracted and disorientated.

2. Fully Accepting the Creator's Spoken or Written Word

After or even during prayer, Satan will flash thoughts of doubt and distrust into
our minds. Can God really be trusted? Will He really even hear my prayer? I'm far
too sinful to have my prayer answered. These thoughts, and many more, will be laid
aside when we get a clear picture of who we are really praying to--a God who
created and now controls the universe by the word of His mouth. Wow! That's
amazing! So if I happen to doubt Him, I look at His creation below, or at the
endless heavens above, and I re-establish my complete confidence in His capacity
to take complete control.

3. Waiting On God
Once I have firmly fixed the concept of the Creator and Controller of the universe
in my mind, I now learn to unconditionally wait on God. I find out that this
waiting demands a unique intimacy and oneness with God in the present, and this
relieves me from fear or fretting about the future. I look at people mentioned in
the Bible, like Joseph, who waited on God for 12 years or more, and I see how God
worked in his life to bring him to the perfect place God wanted him, because he
remained loyal to God, one day at a time.

The True Purpose of Prayer

Now that I have linked my prayers to the prerequisites that support and strengthen
my prayers, I take a closer look at what the specific purpose of prayer should be.
Generally, prayer is a checklist of requests that I bring before God. A checklist
that more often than not revolves around my short sighted needs and, very often,
demands. The following are what the true purpose of prayer really is:

1. Getting to Know God

Oswald Chambers, in his inspiring devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, in
the reading for April 27, states that "God wants you to be in a much closer
relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts--He wants you to get to
know Him . . There is nothing easier than getting into the right relationship with
God, unless it is not God you seek, but only what He can give you . . . Jesus
said, "Ask, and it will be given you . . ." Matthew 7:7. Ask God for what you
want and do not be concerned about asking for the wrong thing, because as you draw
ever closer to Him, you will cease asking for things altogether. "Your Father
knows the things you have need of before you ask Him." Matthew 6:8. Then why
should you ask? So that you may get to know Him . . . Are you prepared to ask
yourself what it is you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores your
present level of completeness in favor of your ultimate future completeness. He is
not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, but He's continually
working out His ultimate perfection for you--"that they may be one just as We are
one. . ." (John 17:22)." A perfect way to illustrate this point is by comparing my
relationship I have now with my step-father today, as compared to the relationship
I had with him twenty years ago. When I was in my teen years, I rebelled against
my mother getting married to my step-father. After they got married, I kept a
distance from him, and would only be associated with him when it came to getting
things from him. I would demand clothes, schooling, free lodging, and money from
him. He would have to ask me repeatedly to do things around the house, many of
which I ignored or did half heartedly. As I matured, and saw all he had done for
me, and all the problems he worked through for me and the family, I changed my
short sighted attitude. I started reaching out to him in a helpful, loving, and
caring manner. The result was unbelievable. The closer our relationship became,
the less we had to ask each other. The more we did for each other, without asking,
the closer our relationship became, and the more time we spent together in
unselfish giving. Today, we hardly have to ask each other anything. We are so
close that we know what the other person needs by simple togetherness. As we
communicate, so I pick up, between the lines, the small needs that he has, and he
picks up mine. Before either of us get to the point where we have to ask, the
other person has already stepped out and met that need. Jesus says, "In that day
you will no longer ask me anything." (John 16:23). Which day is "that day?" It is
the day that we get to know God so intimately, and have such a great love between
God and us, that we won't have to ask Him anything, and He won't have to ask us
anything. "The purpose of prayer is that we get a hold of God, not the
answer."(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, February 7). In the long
periods of time that we spend with Him daily, alone, quiet, meditating, speaking
back and forth, us in prayer and God through His still small voice and through His
Word--we will know the requests coming from each other. There will be no need to
ask, there will be no need for long checklists of petitions, and there will be no
need to wrestle with God for the things we think we need. We will just know that
He will take care of us, and bring us to the perfect point in His long term
purposes, and see to every natural need along the way.

2. Shutting Out Satan

If you have read the section on "The War for Control of Your Thoughts," you would
have seen that the only way Satan can bring you to sin, or bring you to get
depressed, or bring you to feel totally alone, totally helpless, and totally
worthless, is by flashing thought images into your mind that will lead to one of
these negative aspects. Our minds are filled with either good or bad thoughts that
come from either Satan, ourselves or from God. Those from Satan or ourselves are
always bad thoughts, but those from God are always good thoughts. Prayer is indeed
the "sealing of our thoughts" into God's throne room. When we are in a state of
prayer, Satan cannot flash any alluring thought into our minds. No wonder Paul
admonishes us to "Pray without ceasing."1 Thessalonians 5:17. Prayer is when our
thoughts are totally focused, totally concentrated, and totally channeled on and
toward God. Satan has no inroads when our thoughts are so intensely riveted on
God. Satan is the main reason for all our despair, all our despondency, and all
our discouragement. He is the one who keeps thoughts of revenge and hatred locked
into our minds from the past, he is the one who tells us we aren't worth anything
and reminds us of our many failures. He is the one who holds us captive by our
weaknesses and then accuses us for failing over and over, bringing total
desperation and dejection. By constant prayer, we "take captive every thought, and
make it obedient to Christ Jesus." 2 Corinthians 10:5.

3. Removing Self Focus

The way most people pray is very self-centered and self-focused. This is not the
ideal way to pray, as mentioned above in paragraph 1. In this section, on the true
purpose of prayer, the most important objective to be reached by prayer, is to
become totally intimate and one with God. As you and I put unconditional trust in
the Master and Supreme Creator and Controller of the universe, through prayer, we
forget the petty particulars of our petitions, and wallow in the wonder of who He
really is and will accomplish and achieve. Our focus moves away from our physical,
emotional and mental needs, and concentrates on giving and receiving forgiveness,
or thankfulness for the countless gifts which God lavishes on us daily, and on the
needs of others. Satan's greatest weapon against each one of us is to get us
locked into looking and lingering on the "sad and sorry" state of our souls. Well,
this is how he makes us out to be. The more we fall prey to Satan's subtle
sabotaging of our self-esteem, the further we will fall from the way God wants us
to see ourselves--His precious children whom He empties heaven for. If our prayer
time is a time of outward gratitude and thankfulness for all the gifts which God
has given us--things we take so for granted, and things we have become blind to--
our perspective toward our trials will change, making them a lot more trivial. If
our prayer time is a time of reflection on how people around us are suffering, how
much worse their situation is, and how much prayer and support they need, we will
forget how severe we see our situation to be. Yes, using prayer as a means to
divert the focus from ourselves, rather than a means to delve deeper into
ourselves, is a healing therapy that will help us and heighten our spirits,
bringing a renewed heart filled with hope and happiness.

Prayer is the Ultimate For Help and Healing

Prayer is indeed the means to move the helping and healing hand of God to reach
and touch us in our specific situation. God has packaged together many marvelous
and miraculous benefits when we pray in the unselfish and God-centered manner as
we have discussed. They go together inseparably."Through asking, God puts His
process in motion, creating something in us that was nonexistent until we asked .
. . A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers
prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer." My
Utmost For His Highest (December 17, August 20). "For I know the plans I have for
you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give
you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come pray to me, and I will
listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
I will be found by you," declares the Lord.Jeremiah 29:11-13.

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