Effective Prayer

The Bible teaches that faith produces answered prayer. Jesus said, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

I find it easier to have faith for answered prayers when I realize the magnificent power of the One to whom I’m talking. In the Book of Acts the disciples prayed, “Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is” (Acts 4:24).

When you pray you’re actually talking to the divine Creator of this entire universe. Remember that! Too often we carry our own limitations over to God. Sometimes we know too much about the circumstances of a situation, and we have difficulty praying with faith.

For example, I have a mechanical mind. Therefore, it’s very difficult for me to pray for a miracle when the engine in my car won’t run. I just lack the faith that God can start the car when I know quite well that the coil is weak, the points are bad, and the battery has been run down. There’s no way I can pray, “O God, help this car to start!”

However, my wife doesn’t know a thing about mechanics. She’s rarely looked under the hood of a car. She doesn’t know a distributor from a carburetor or an oil dipstick from a radiator cap. So she can have great faith whenever we have trouble getting the car started.

I’ll say, “What are we going to do?”

She’ll say, “Let’s pray.”

I’ll answer, “Aw, come on! We can’t pray for something like this. It’s mechanical.”

But she’ll bow her head and say, “Lord, help this car to start now. You know we’ve got to get going. I thank you, Father, and I ask it in Jesus’ name.” Then she’ll say, “Okay. Try it again.”

I’ll say, “But it’s no use!”

“Just go ahead and try it.” And the engine will fire off!

Whom are you addressing when you pray? What limit can you place on God’s ability? Look around the universe at what God has already done. Then figure out what His limitations might be. He’s quite a big God.

We sometimes pray as if we were talking to someone extremely limited in power. “O, Lord! I don’t know if You can do this or not. I even hate to ask You. And if You can’t, well, that’s all right. I understand.”

Difficulty must always be measured by the capacity of the agent called upon to do the work. Who is the agent you’re calling upon? He is God, the Creator of the universe. He is your heavenly Father who loves you and has a deep concern for you. Nothing is too hard for Him.

Jeremiah prayed, “Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee” (Jeremiah 32:17). That’s a good way to start prayer!

Many times we’re too overburdened with the situation when we start to pray. It’s been sitting on our shoulders and it feels like a thousand tons. We plead, “O Lord, what can move this mountain? You know what the doctor said about this, Lord. Fatal in 99% of the cases. O Lord, this is horrible!”

We’re so taken back with the problem that we’ve forgotten that we’re talking with the One who created the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them. It’s no more difficult for God to cure a person in the last stages of leukemia than it is for Him to take away a sore throat. It’s no more difficult for God to put a new arm on a man than it is to remove his headache.

You may say, “Come on, now. There are limits.”

What if a starfish lost one of his arms? Would you have a hard time praying, “God, put a new arm on that starfish?” No. We know that nature causes a new arm to grow on a starfish. Cut a little earthworm in half, and nature will make it grow another half. But who is nature? Who created the laws of nature? Could not God, who created us and all the functions within us, cause a new arm to grow? If He can put within the earthworm the capacity to grow another half, why would it be so difficult for Him to put a new arm or a new leg on a person?

When we think of such miracles, we’re stymied from the human standpoint and carry that limit over to God. We say, “Don’t bother about a new arm, God. Just help him adjust to living without it.”

Sometimes God will perform miracles just to show us that He can do it in spite of our unbelief.

A lady called me one time in Tucson where I was pastoring. She said, “Oh, Chuck, pray for my little son, David. The car door slammed on his finger. We’re at the doctor’s office and he says he’ll have to amputate! Please pray, Chuck, that God will heal it, and they won’t have to amputate David’s finger.”

I prayed with the mother over the phone. The Spirit moved upon my heart and I really felt good about the situation. I said, “I believe God’s going to heal David’s finger! Praise the Lord and rejoice! God’s going to do a miraculous work!”

The doctor told David’s mother, “You can bring him back tomorrow. But we’ll have to make the decision whether or not to amputate tomorrow.”

The next day she took little David back to the specialist. He looked at the finger and said, “I’m sorry, but blood poisoning has already set in. I’m going to have to amputate. The bone is crushed and there’s nothing else I can do.”

She called me on the phone. She was crying so hard she couldn’t talk. “What’s the matter?” I asked. She was hysterical. Her sister took the phone and said, “Chuck, the doctor just amputated the tip of David’s finger and it has her completely shaken.”

I said, “Tell her I’ll meet her at the house.”

As I drove to her house I was so angry with God! I said, “Lord, why didn’t You heal that finger? You could have healed it so easily! That’s nothing for You. Besides, I told her to trust and have faith in You, and now look what You’ve done. You’ve let both of us down! I’ve got to go and talk to her now. She’s hysterical and I don’t know what to say!”

When I got to her house I said, “June, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. God has a purpose.… It could have been his whole finger, or an arm. Be thankful it was just the tip of the finger. That isn’t too bad. David will learn to adjust. Someday we’ll discover God’s purposes.”

It’s not easy to counsel in these situations, but I did the best I could. On my way home I was still angry with God. “Lord, I just don’t understand what You’re doing! If I were You, I certainly would have healed that finger.”

I was upset. My faith was shattered. I couldn’t have prayed for someone’s cold that night. The faith of David’s mother was shattered. Though I tried to comfort her, she couldn’t be comforted.

The next morning she called me. She was very excited, screaming on the phone, “Chuck! Chuck! Something happened!”

I said, “What happened now?”

“It’s fabulous!” she said. “David was wrestling with his brother and he knocked the bandage off his finger. I went to put the bandage back on. There’s another whole pink fingertip growing out! It looks like brand new flesh!” She took David to the specialist. He looked at the finger and scratched his head. He said, “Nurse, bring me my chart.” He looked at his chart and said, “Nurse, we did amputate, didn’t we?”

She said, “Yes, doctor.”

The doctor shook his head. “That’s impossible!” he said. “Could you bring David back tomorrow, please?”

His mother brought David the next day and the doctor went through the same routine. He said, “Would you mind bringing him back tomorrow?” Every day for a week David’s mother had to bring her little boy into the specialist who would look at the new fingertip and scratch his head. He X-rayed it and saw that the bone was intact. He said, “This is something fantastic! As far as I know, medical science has never seen anything like this. I have no explanation for it at all. But, of course, you know that it’s impossible for a nail ever to form on that tip.”

A couple of weeks later a fingernail started growing. Within two months David could hold out both hands, and you couldn’t tell which finger tip had been amputated!

David went back to the doctor once a week for a year. The doctor took pictures, documented the whole event and submitted it to the Journal of the American Medical Association. The doctor was a Jew, and David’s mother testified to him about the power of Jesus Christ. He finally said, “I have to confess that this is a miracle of God.”

Afterwards I admitted, “Wow! You sure are smart, God! That’s really far out!” Had God healed the finger before the amputation, the specialist would never have believed any part of the mother’s witness. He would have rationalized that the body healed itself. But after the amputation… “You did it to blow the doctor’s mind!”

Why do we limit God? Because we are limited. We need to realize to whom we’re talking when we pray. Get our eyes off our problems. Get our minds on the fact that we’re talking to the Creator of all things: God, who is so great, so vast, and so powerful!

God’s Wisdom

As you pray, it is also important to realize the extent of God’s wisdom. God knows everything about your life. He knows the troubles you’re going through, the situations you’re facing, and the problems you have.

In fact, thousands of years ago God knew the problems you’d be facing today. He also knew the answer He’d work out for you. God isn’t taken by surprise. He isn’t at a loss for an answer to your problems. God has your whole situation totally under His control.

Satan’s actions do not diminish God’s control, for Satan can do no more than what God allows him to do. God sets the boundaries for the enemy and says, “You can move in this box, but you can’t go outside of it.” All things are moving within the prescribed limits set by God.

Look at Russia, once one of the most powerful military forces in the world. Look at the armaments and megaton bombs she possessed, her delivery system of ICBM’s and their tremendous power. The Russians were threatening not many years ago to bury us. But they can’t even lift a bomb off the ground unless God allows them to do it. All things happen according to God’s predetermined counsel. When you pray, remember that nothing is out of God’s hand. God has everything under His control, and I might add, His timing is perfect though it is often not in sync with ours.

Once everything is in perspective and you realize to whom you’re praying—how great God is, how wise He is, and how completely He controls all things—your requests won’t seem so impossible.

“O Lord God, You created the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. You’ve got everything under control. You’ve written about today’s world condition thousands of years ago. It’s all happening right on target just as You predicted and according to Your counsel. O Lord, You know my tooth aches. Please take the pain away!” If God created the universe, it is certainly not hard for Him to take care of this little annoyance.

The greater our concept of God, the smaller our problem seems. However, most of the time we get right into the problem when we pray. “O, God! This is so big! This is so horrible!” We panic because the mountain seems so high. But God created Mt. Everest, and He could move it to another part of the universe if He so desired! Jesus said,

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. —Matthew 17:20

How big is that mountain you’re facing? “I don’t know how I’m going to pay my bills next week! Where will I ever get the money?” Where did all the gold come from anyway? God created it. It’s nothing for God to meet your needs. If you can realize His power, His wisdom, His sovereignty, then you can bring your request to God with confidence and ease.

In the Old Testament, King Asa said, “LORD, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power” (2 Chronicles 14:11). In other words, it really makes no difference to God whether you have a big army or a small platoon.

Early one morning Jonathan arose and saw Israel’s enemies, the Philistines, camped in the distance. Most of Saul’s army had deserted and fled across the Jordan river. He looked around and saw that the men in his own company were fast asleep. He nudged his armor-bearer and said, “Wake up! Look at all those Philistines over there. I wonder if God wants to deliver the Philistines to Israel today? If He does He doesn’t need the whole army. He can deliver the Philistines to the two of us just as easily as to the whole army. Let’s venture over to the Philistine camp and see if God wants to work for Israel today.”

They came into the camp of the Philistines and began attacking them. These two fellows began the rout of the whole Philistine army! (1 Samuel 14:1–18) It makes no difference to God whether you’re weak or strong, whether you have a whole army or you’re alone. If God is doing the work, that’s all that counts.

How do we engage in prayers that produce results? How can we pray effectively? Get the right concept of God—and the rest is easy!