Understanding Prayer: Gaining Faith Thru Comprehension

I know this speaks to God’s will, but that doesn’t make me wonder less:

Why does God answer some prayers, and not others?  Why do we see and read about some healings, where other ailments continue their course?  Should we be able to make blanket statements about Prayer and about God answering prayer?  If so, what are those statements, and where is the supporting scripture?  Why do people believe the power they read about in the Bible, is not available to them today, if God is indeed unwavering and is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" [Hebrews 13:8, 1 Peter 1:23-25, Isaiah 40:7-8].

The following response is an attempt to address those questions.

Prevalent Bible prayers answered immediately:

Moses and the Pharaoh with the ten plagues:

Ex 9:27-29

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. "This time I have sinned," he said to them. "The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don't have to stay any longer." Moses replied, "When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord. The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so you may know that the earth is the Lord's.

Elijah and the 450 Baal prophets, with the sacrifice sitting in trench of water:

1 Kings 36-38

At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again." Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

Moses dealing with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram - ground opens up and swallows them:

Numbers 16:26-33

He warned the assembly, "Move back from the tents of these wicked men! Do not touch anything belonging to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins." So they moved away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing with their wives, children and little ones at the entrances to their tents. Then Moses said, "This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea: If these men die a natural death and experience only what usually happens to men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the Lord with contempt." As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions. They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.

Just before Moses was talking to God about this whole thing, and then God told Moses to tell the people to back away from them in verse 23.

After Elijah predicts drought, he’s with a widow in Zarephath:

1 Kings 17 8-16

Then the word of the Lord came to him: "Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food." So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?" As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me, please, a piece of bread."  "As surely as the Lord your God lives," she replied, "I don't have any bread--only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it--and die." Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.'" She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.  For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

Elijah had a reason to be there.  So it’s easy enough to see the prayer for food as being part of God’s will.  Their lack of food could even be related to the drought.  But look at what happens next:

1 Kings 17 17-24

Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing.  She said to Elijah, "What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"  "Give me your son," Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed.  Then he cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?"  Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord, "O Lord my God, let this boy's life return to him!"  The Lord heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived.  Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your son is alive!"  Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth."

Her son was dying and it had nothing to do with the drought.  Elijah takes the boy upstairs, prays, and then God revives him.  Verse 17:24, we see the woman confessing more about Elisha.  So perhaps it’s a furthering of the kingdom.

All of these occurrences show God presence in a matter-of-fact manner.  They either bring people to knowing God, or help others on the outside realize his involvement.  Some of the situations have long term ramifications, and some short term.

Joshua prays while fighting the Amorites, for the sun to stand still:

Joshua 10: 12-14

On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, 13 as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!

Read that last verse again.  I wonder what was so special about that instance, about Joshua’s state of mind or being and about God.  What do you think was going thru Joshua’s persona when he was acting out God’s will?  Justice, perseverance, steadfastness, faithfulness? Or was it just that the tuning fork of Joshua's heart was ringing the same note as God's was, in that particular instance?

Answered Bible prayers that may have incurred time:

Prayer for children:

Gen 25:21

Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

Solomon and his prayer at his newly built temple:

Solomon and the great temple, supposed to have been constructed with over a third of the gold on the earth.  God didn’t need a temple, didn’t want a temple.  He created the earth for men to dwell, not for Himself to sit.  But some of the phraseology is allegorical to God living in us after the Pentecost, with our earthly bodies as temples.  And so it’s even more relative to this subject:

2 Chronicles 6:12-42, also 1 Kings 8.

Then look at God’s response:

2 Chronicles 7:12-22

The Lord appeared to him at night and said: "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.  "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.  I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.  "As for you, if you walk before me as David your father did, and do all I command, and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a man to rule over Israel.'  "But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples.  And though this temple is now so imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and say, 'Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?'  People will answer, 'Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them--that is why he brought all this disaster on them.

So… live in accordance to the law, to God’s will, to the character and intent rolled out in the New Testament and you’ll have a good life.

Look at the parallel in Philippians 3 and 4:

Philippians 3:12- 21:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.  Only let us live up to what we have already attained.  Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Job and his perseverance under trial.

The book of Job

Jonah’s prayer in the fish:

Jonah 2:1-10

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.  He said: "In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.  You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.  I said, 'I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.'  The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God.  "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.  "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.  But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord."   And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Reflections:

It is a well known fact to us today that God transforms our character, that he heals our emotional and spiritual brokenness.  This is seen thru our lives.  This is God’s desire, to reform our lives… to help us grow and learn as we live and fulfill the Great Commission.  His desire isn’t to make our lives comfortable, yet there are always these weird exceptions where you see that happen. 

Some people are blessed with wealth:

I’m not rich, but I’m a great example.  I’m no different than anyone else, yet if I were to tell you about my past – my poor and abusive childhood, my learned life of disaster, setup for failure, about becoming a ward of the court, eventually receiving a full tuition scholarship, career paths and movement up the ladder, it’s absolutely amazing.  And I cannot boast any of that was me.  Little of what I did (and do) for personal gain actually flourished; all I gained was more humility.

Some people are blessed with a miraculous change:

A good friend of mine in CA was as worldly as you can get, and he caught the worst kind of cancer that exists.  He went thru chemo but it wasn’t helping; in fact his cancer was only growing worse, and he was on the list to die.  He grew in his faith over that time, and then a miracle occurred.  On his regular check up to see how much longer he had (looking at a couple months left), the doctors could find no evidence of the cancer.  It just plain vanished.  Period.  He ended up marrying one of the nurses, and has lived for 10 years without a return.

Some people are blessed with other extraordinary things, but most are not.  Most people grow in character and then God takes them.  Philippians 1:21 says “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  But… why does God take physical action in some prayers, and not in others?  Where’s the line?  Are we meant to see that line?  Are we meant to understand it so we can strive to live with a relationship so great with God that this type of capability is second nature?

I often “ask in faith, without any doubting”, as James 1:6 says - for character transformations and God’s will to be lived out.  But I have the hardest time discerning what is God’s will outside of that, to muster up the faith needed in order "get out of the boat" and walk to Jesus (as Peter does in Matt 14:28).  What’s so special about Elijah and Elisha’s healing, Joshua’s prayer for daylight, Jonah’s prayer in the fish, and other crazy exceptions? 

Well, all those men were more godly than most.

Proverbs 15:29

The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

James 5:14-16

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.  Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

1 Peter 3:12

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

Final thoughts:

It seems like the power of prayer is directly proportional to the godly character of an individual, and that physical requests are subject more to point-in-time supplication where man is significantly more in tuned to God’s will.  That seems like a sufficient but true, generalized statement. 

I’m still looking for the prayer formula, if you will, that takes into account sinners being healed and godly people dying slow deaths at a young age, even though bathed in prayer.  I may just have to accept the general understanding until the day I see Christ, and gain the life outside of this one.  Even if I haven't understood the "formula" for prayer, it's exercises like these which bring me closer to understanding more about God.  And that really is the goal...

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