Does prayer work?

Hi Jackie,

What a great question. I can’t say how much I’ve been struggling with this myself lately. I’ve been sick for several years and for about a year now it’s so bad I’m basically bedridden. I’m only 21 and this kind of thing is only supposed to happen to old people, right? I pray every night for healing and my church and friends all over the world have been praying for years, but I’m still sick. Like you I know in my head that pain and suffering are a consequence of Sin, but lately it seems my heart can’t comprehend that it isn’t God being vindictive or something.

What I keep coming back to are the basic truths of being a Christian. God sent His only Son to die an excruciatingly painful and humiliating death so that we wouldn’t spend eternity suffering His absence in Hell. So If He was willing to suffer for me so I wouldn’t have to experience the ultimate suffering of being apart from His presence in eternity, then I have to believe that He doesn’t want us to suffer, but allows it so we can have free will to choose Him.

I know that’s probably really flawed logic and it’s not very concrete, but it’s what helps me.

I’ll be praying you find peace on this issue.

God bless,

Chris

Your post reminded me today of an image/vision?/mental picture I received ten years ago when I was experiencing a season of extreme faith and was excited and motivated about prayer. I say that I “received” the mental picture because soon after I wrote it down on a piece of paper, another person in the room actually said the exact same thing–which for me was an amazing confirmation that my imagination wasn’t carrying me away into some kind of weirdness–as I’m sure it often does.

We were looking at Revelation 8:3,4 which describes an angel pouring out a bowl of incense upon an altar, creating smoke that rose up before God. And when the smoke reached God, something happened in the earth. The incense consisted of the prayers of the saints.

In my mind’s eye–at that time-I imagined or saw what looked like an oily substance that was both golden and blue, kind of like what we see in a hot flame. For some reason, I knew or understood that the incense was a mixture of two types of prayers. The gold was the prayer of confidence when we know beyond a shadow of doubt that God will work when we call upon Him. But the blue was the prayer of suffering, when we keep on praying through doubt. Both types of prayer consisted of faith. One was just harder to collect because of the cost to the individual.

This image seemed to make sense at the time, because I had an understanding that flames are different colors because of the intensity of the temperature. So why wouldn’t prayers be represented by different colors as well?

But the point seemed to be that the bowls were FULL of incense before they were poured out over the flame of the altar in Heaven. Therefore, it seemed apparent at the time, that sometimes our prayers seem to go unanswered simply because the golden bowls are not yet filled.

I guess my encouragement to you is to remain faithful through this season of doubt. Perhaps God is calling you to fill the bowls of intercession with the prayers of suffering, not just for yourself, but for others around the world who may not even have faith to pray.

I get the impression, from the passage, that no prayer goes unanswered. Not a single drop of the incense is wasted or cast aside by the angel. It all eventually is poured out upon the altar and burned in order to reach the nostrils of God Almighty.

So in your suffering, value your intercession for others who may not have the strength to pray right now. And realize, that someone somewhere else in the world is also praying for you, thereby filling up the bowl with the incense of intercession. Only God knows the size of the bowl and how close it is to being poured out over the flame.

Thank you Chris, Jonalyn, and Stephen! I’ve been working through this struggle the last month and knowing that I’m not the only one or that God is disappointed in me has been very helpful.
Jonalyn,
I really appreciated Dale’s “The Problem with Prayer”. I know I will have a better understanding of God once this journey is over, but it still doesn’t make the journey easy.
As for right now I’ve made a committment with one of my freinds to pray for marriages for 100 days. This has helped me for a number of reasons. First it has helped me get back in the habit of prayer and devotion. It also seems less risky, because I won’t really know the outcome of my prayer because it is so wide.
I know praying specific is important, but I’m taking one step at a time.
Thanks again for taking the time to give me your thoughts and encouragement.
Jackie