The Joy of
Prayer
I will... make them joyful in My house of prayer.
— Isaiah 56:7
"Hi. Abba, Father, it's me. Hi."
Next to salvation in Jesus, prayer is the greatest gift that the God who smiles ever gave to the human race. Every week half a trillion prayers are offered up at His heavenly altar. Prayer is the unassailable proof God provides to show that, unlike all other creatures, the Creator made us humans in His own image and likeness. Over the millennia, prayer has become perhaps the one outstanding achievement of human life in its tenure on planet Earth.
But what do all these prayers to God mean? Rees Howells, the great Welsh intercessor, has told us in six startling words. He said, "The meaning of prayer is answer." Very well put. There are thousands of books telling us how to pray, but what's the point of any of them if there is no answer? Think of all the prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, and submission offered every day to God, and then ask, how many requests are filled? How many petitions win a response?
Are your prayers answered?
Let me propose a rule of thumb for every Christian: Because you are God's child, there is no such thing as unanswered
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prayer. God always hears you, and He always answers you in one of three different ways — He says YES, or He says NO, or He says WAIT.
If it is Yes, then you are home free. God has blessed you. Sing us a song, cut yourself some pie and enjoy!
If it is No, then don't argue. Try something else. Maybe God has different plans to bless you and is telling you something.
It it is Wait, then stop praying about it and start trusting. God's timing is perfect. As for His answer — it may not be what you thought you wanted when it comes, but it will be the blessing He wanted.
Have fun!
Rees Howells is right, I am now convinced. Any book on prayer (and I have a stack) should start not with a discussion of our forms and liturgies, nor with the value and importance of prayer, but rather with God Himself, the Giver and Answerer of prayer. And I have a relevant thought to ask: The real joy of prayer is also answer. Not the enthusiasm we muster in building the altar or digging the trench. Not in erecting a magnificent cathedral of prayer. Not in polishing the phrases of our lectionaries and liturgies. Not in exercising our limbs in a prayer dance or in rewriting the prayers of earlier prayer books.
The joy of prayer comes with the answer, when in response to our appeal to the unseen resources of heaven, things happen. Waves are backed up, a fog covers the retreat, stillborn babies suddenly begin to breathe, souls are turned from sin and Satan to Jesus, and unexpected-but-prayed-for "coincidences" occur to change the course of history. Joy comes when after all bold human attempts fail and all glamorous human efforts come to nothing, God acts. A little child shuts its eyes and prays for a parent, and the Holy One lifts His finger (so to speak) and Prayer Number 2, 345, 678, 987, 654 is suddenly and miraculously answered.
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Talk about joy! Talk about jubilation, exultation, unbelievability, gladness of heart, and laughter and tears of joy! There is nothing this side of heaven to match it. And it happens all the time, if the Spirit of prayer is present.
PRAYER IN THE PAST
Let me refresh your memory about some of the great prayer warriors of the ages. Start with Abraham, kneeling at the terebinth of Mamre. Then Moses, and Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah, and Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon, Anna, and Paul, to name just a few in the Book of Books. Think again about the words of James, the half-brother of the Lord: "You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss... But He gives more grace... The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
Think of the godly men and women who followed the wake of the apostles and took the gospel to the ends of the known earth, by camel caravan, by ship and on foot. Their principal fuel? Prayer. The early missionaries such as Columba, Kentigern, Ninian, and Ansgar prayed the Britons and Celts from druidism to Jesus. Lady Julian of Norwich is still remembered for her delightful style of intercession. God answered the prayers of the Pilgrim fathers and the other Puritans by founding the colonies of North America. What joy that brought to the believers from Britain and Europe who thereby escaped the rampant religious persecution!
In our own land many an unknown saint has taken joy in prayers while training children and grandchildren to grow up in the nurture and love of God. God changed my own life forever by attending to the prayers of a quiet Pennsylvania artist-window who loved Jesus.
It was 1958 that I met Dr. Nelson Bell, the father of Mrs. Ruth Graham, in San Francisco when Billy Graham held a
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crusade there. Dr. Bell told me later that he prayed for me every day by name. In his home I saw where he did his praying. Do you wonder how an unknown minister and exnewspaperman could be asked to edit what became the world's most popular Christian magazine, Decision? Rees Howells could have told you: "The meaning of prayer is answer."
JOY IN PRAYER?
Another man of God, Ole Kristian Hallesby, was enormous help to me spiritually. He changed me from a prayer worrier to a prayer warrior. This warm, gentle, fervent Norwegian Free Lutheran preacher wrote a book titled Prayer early in the twentieth century and it became a bestseller in a number of languages. He asked a key question: "Why do most of us fail so miserably at prayer?" That realistic query goads me today to spin an equally important question: "Why is there so little joy in prayer?"
Stop and think again about all those petitions we human beings keep offering up. How many of them are desperate prayers, weeping prayers, anxious prayers, earnest, sober, godly, sincere, agonizing prayers? Did you ever wonder what you would do with them if you were God? I knew a pastor who would spend hours on his knees shouting to God and pounding his fist on the carpet. No joy there. God knows that my heart goes out to all unhappy seekers who cry out to Him, for I have been there. All I can say is that something is wrong with the prayer wheel. It squeaks.
My Bible tells me that Jesus came bringing us joy and the promise of life abundant. It tells me that His healings brought joy to many and that His own joy did not leave Him even at the crucifixion. We read that His own joy enabled Him to endure the scorning, torture, lashings, and cruel impaling on a cross. It says that Jesus' first word uttered after leaving the tomb empty
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was "Great joy!' And when He left His disciples and returned to glory, they went back to Jerusalem (read that last verse in Luke) with "great joy." When they reached the other followers of Jesus, they all went into the temple and staged a revival!
Writes Dr. Hallesby, "To move in prayers as though one were in one's element, to pray daily with a willing spirit, with joy, with gratitude and with adoration, is something which is far beyond our human capacities and abilities. For this a miracle of God is necessary every day. This miracle consists in receiving the Spirit of Prayer." Here then is the secret. When the Holy Spirit imparts to us the "Spirit of Prayer," then praying ceases to be a burden, a drudge, and a duty, and becomes an exciting venture into the Great Unknown, which is unknown no longer.
Hallesby makes three points: First, we no longer need to think we must help God fulfill our prayer. (So much for the old saw, "The Lord helps those who help themselves.") Second, we are no longer to use our prayers to order God to do our bidding. He will not be compelled. (So much for "Do it, Lord, do it," that is, the wing-it, urgent, command type of prayer.) And third, we need to learn always to pray in the name of Jesus. It is Hallesby says, "the one Name that gives unholy men and women access to a holy God."
His book opened a new vista to me. I saw that prayer could be joyful, even fun. It can be filled with thanksgiving. The idea of prayer as a heavy and burdensome duty can be discarded. No longer need the prayer life be limited, restricted, or boxed. Once released, it is as free as the air and is carried on wings of love. Demands cannot stifle it. Pressure cannot restrict it. Worry cannot derail it. Instead, our prayers can be immersed in love by the Holy Spirit and charged with thrills, as new fields of opportunity to serve the Lord are brought to mind.
Charles Finney, the great nineteenth-century evangelist, tells un amusing story of his seeking God in prayer meetings
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at his church in Adams, New York. It seems he refused to let the people pray for him. He wrote in his memoirs, "I did not see that God answered their prayers. I told them, 'I am conscious that I am a sinner, but I don't see that it will do any good for you to pray for me, for you are continually asking, but you do not receive. You have prayed enough since I began attending to have prayed the devil out of Adams, if there is any virtue in your prayers. But here you are praying on, and complaining still.' "
Every minister has had to suffer through such prayers. At times I have wanted to interrupt with the words, "For heaven's sake, wrap it up. I have other things to do besides listening to this." (You don't have to tell me that is a wrong attitude.) I would be cramped in an uncomfortable position on a hard floor and would have to endure a long-winded description of the problems of someone not present whom I never knew. Quite obviously the supplicator expected no solution, nor was there anything for me to do except to listen in spiritual sympathy — and discomfort. But where were the "joyful noises," the gladness, and the singing? Gone with the wind.
When conversion came to Charles Finney, it came with new life and God's great love and the Joy of the Lord. Dr. Hallesby has a particularly vivid description of the way new life moved into his own soul, but he pictures it as it would happen for anyone:
Light from above falls into the darkness of the
person's soul. Jesus has died for his sins. He is a
child of God. He does not need anything besides his
Savior. It is as though his heart would burst with
joy! He gives thanks, he sings praises and songs of
joy to the wonderful God who saves sinners.
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Such is the joy of prayer. And did this happen to me, and if so, how? All I can say is, Yes, God answered. A better, ,pre spiritual description of what happens on prayers is found in the fifth chapter of Revelation:
I looked, and behold... a Lamb... Now when He had
taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the
twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each
having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which
are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new
song, saying: "You are worthy... for You were slain,
and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of
every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and
have made us kings and priests to our God.
"Good night, Abba. Thanks a lot."
