Praying to God is an act that I am sure of, even if they are an atheist now, everyone has attempted. In fact, an unanswered prayer to God may be the very reason that someone is indeed an atheist now. Prayer to God may also be the very reason that someone is a Christian now. In the US, Prayer is a huge factor in the lives for the Americans. U.S. News and the Internet site Beliefnet conducted and funded a poll to gather information on the statistical activity of prayer. 75% reported they were Christians and 64% reported that they pray more than once a day. Of these prayers, 41% reported that their prayers are answered often, 1.5% reported that their prayers are never answered, and over 73% reported that even when their prayers are not answered, they believed it was because it didn’t fit with God’s plans.
These statistics, though far perfect, I believe still hold some ground of significance. Many people are praying, have prayed, or at least attempted it. For many Christians, I believe we can also fall in suit into some of these statistics too. Personally, I have had many prayer requests that have been answered, I have also had many prayer request that went “unanswered”. (Unanswered meaning that God answered “No”). But even when God answered “No”, I also believe that it must have just not been in God’s plans.
I believe that an unnoticed problem that many Christians have today is not the amount of time we spend praying. Granted, it is a major problem and many Christians do struggle with praying on a consistent basis. But even when a Christian does pray, I also don’t think that the biggest problem is necessarily how the Christian prays either. Of course, in prayer, we should always remember to thank God, praise his name, not just to ask away our “grocery list”. But I believe that the biggest and most unnoticed problem that Christians face is not having enough faith when they pray.
Tell me if this prayer doesn’t sound like your usual prayer.
“Dear God, I pray for ____, but even if you don’t answer the prayer I will still love you (praise you, know that it is your will etc.)”
Do I think that there is necessarily anything wrong with praying this prayer? No. I prayed like this for, it feels like, my whole life. But I would like to open up another opportunity--a different way to pray--a way to pray that will increase your faith.
(Inspired from: The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible by Mark Batterson)
Jesus’s first ever miracle, a miracle that turned the chemical compound H2O into C2H5OH, is presented in John 2. Before this event, Jesus was not known as the son of God, Lord, or any of that. He had not started his ministry yet, he was just known as, Jesus the carpenter. So the first miracle he would ever do must have had a lot of significance to start his new career. But how does this miracle even get started?
Jesus and his mother attended a wedding and were partying during the week or so long celebration. But during the middle of the reception, the party ran out of wine. The wine was supposed to be provided for the entire week! The bride and grooms families must have had their hearts sunk when they found out that their party was ruined, that they disappointed everyone there, and how their social status would be depleted. There was a problem.
What was the first prayer request ever spoken to Jesus? It was by his mother, Mary. This was her prayer request, “They have no more wine”.When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine." John 2:3. These were the words that sparked Jesus into doing his first public miracle. The words that Jesus knew would start the countdown clock to his crucifixion. But these words persuaded Jesus to fix the problem, Jesus turned water into wine. In fact, he filled more than enough barrels!
Mary didn’t plead, she didn’t say “but I understand if you don’t answer it”, she simply addressed the problem. Knowing her son was the child of God, she had enough faith that alone, by just addressing the problem, Jesus would fix it.
Don’t we as Christians know that Jesus is the son of God? We need to have faith like Mary when we address our prayer request.
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. James 1:5
I believe that as Christians, we need to have more faith when we pray. This is why I have stopped praying these words, “But if you don’t answer it…” That is setting ourselves for the opportunity to have doubt in our prayer! When we pray those words we get distracted by the possibility that God won’t answer it when we should be having thoughts of absolute faith that God will answer it!
We are called to have faith! Jesus spoke of a parable about how even if we had faith as small as a mustard seed we could move mountains. In fact, Jesus never spoke of the people of having too much faith, but he did reference that they had too little faith. And there isn’t any scripture at all that supports having too much faith!
There are three steps to praying the pray that I believe requires the most faith. Each step can either be used by itself, or in the progression of all three. For this example I have used something that I have been praying for, my Type 1 Diabetes, currently not curable.
1. “Lord, I have Type 1 Diabetes.”
This prayer simply acknowledges the problem, just like what Mary did.
2. “Lord, I pray for the healing of my Type 1 Diabetes.”
This prayer addresses the problem and asks for the answer.
3. “Lord, thank you for the healing of my Type 1 Diabetes”
This prayer, possibly requiring the most faith, shows the confidence and faith in the Christian that they have so much faith in God, they are already thanking him for the response.
(There is ultimately no special prayer that can be prayed to get a better answer from God, it boils down to your level of faith in him.
So what honestly happens if the prayer doesn’t get answered? For me personally, it will. I will be healed one day on the New Earth, so my prayer technically will get answered then. But I will still pray for it every day because I believe in his healing power. But for prayers that really will get a “No”, what do we say about that? Well, if you pray these types of prayers, you can have better assurance that the issue wasn’t that you had “too little faith”, although there is always more room for your faith to grow. And there is never a problem of having too much faith.
