Problematic prayer
Scott asks whether we should pray over and over again for the same thing:
If we lift one or more things up to God one time, isn't that enough for Him to know what are needs are? What difference does it make if we repeat it again?
But what about the parable of the persistent widow? That starts off with, "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Sounds like He was telling them to keep praying when they see nothing happening.
Prayer is such a confusing and difficult subject. We need to pray with right motives and according to God's will ("Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven", The Lord's Prayer), but it's sometimes hard to discern God's will. I mean like they say it's always God's will for a person to be physically healed, but then why do many people still die of cancer after being prayed for? Death might just be the ultimate healing, passing over to a place where there is no more mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4). So how would we know whether God wants to heal the person here or wants to heal the person by bringing them "Home"...?
I suppose when we don't know what God's will is then we simply ask, knowing that it's God's prerogative to say "no". Then I question, if God might say "no", how can I ever have faith that He will grant what I ask for? (Remember Mark 11:24, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours"? And James 1:6-8, "But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does"?)
See what I mean? When I start thinking, I get all tangled up. What if I am persistent in prayer and the reason nothing is happening is because God is saying "no" or "wait"? Wouldn't I be wasting my breath?
But I also do believe in that old cliché, "prayer changes things". In 1981, a Malaysian pastor wrote a song with these lyrics:
For every time I pray, I move the hand of God
My prayer does the things my hands cannot do
For every time I pray, the mountains are removed
The paths are made straight and nations turn to you.
When I sing that song, it gives me the chills to know that I can partner with God in this manner and make a difference. Moses made a difference when he prayed for the people of Israel:
"O LORD," he said, "why should Your anger burn against Your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth'? Turn from Your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on Your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom You swore by Tour own self: 'I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.' " Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
-- Exodus 32:11-14, emphasis mine
So I still pray. And still believe God will move. And try to leave all the rest of it for God to worry about.
Postscript:
Catherine Marshall wrote about different kinds of prayers in her book Adventures in Prayer. It's a little book that's helped me to understand prayer a little better. One of the prayers she talks about is The Waiting Prayer, where we pray and then simply wait for God to move. I suppose there is a time to "pester" God with repeated requests and a time to just let it all rest in His hands. How to figure out which is which? I'm not very sure. I go mainly by "instinct". Or "intuition". Or perhaps that's just God, guiding me in a very subtle way... who knows?