The Power of Prayer?

I want to confess something: I’m not sure that I really understand the power of prayer. I know a lot about prayer, I pray, and I value and enjoy the experience.

But something happened this morning that caused me to ask myself a very important question: How important is prayer?

Let me tell you my experience and you can decide if you have ever felt this way. I was meeting with a few guys from my church. We get together every Wednesday at 6:30 am in a local Starbucks (By the way, I’ve been meeting people a lot in Starbucks and I’ve discovered something: The aroma of coffee is quite appealing… But the aroma of coffee in clothes is not. If I sit in a starbucks for more than 30 minutes, my clothes smell like coffee breath!) We were talking and one guy was sharing about a particular challenge in his life. As I was listening I kept trying to think of something I could do to help him. But I couldn’t. This was a little frustrating, because, as a guy, I want to solve problems. So this is what was going on in my mind– I can’t think of anyway to help him, so I guess I’ll just have to pray for him. Then that thought came out of my mouth. Almost apologetically, like, “since I can’t really help, I will pray for you.”

Is that really what I think about prayer? That it’s a last resort– when all my efforts prove inadequate. Of course, intellectually/theologically I would say that prayer is the most important thing we could do (and I actually beleive that!), but I was a little ashamed at how this little scenario actually played out in practical application.

I think God wants to teach me something about prayer. And I imagine that means I am going to face a lot of things that I am powerless to handle– because, as I learned this morning, I can attempt to approach issues on my own until I reach the end of my ability to handle them– then I call for God.

That’s a good thing. In fact, I’m glad God let me see how I sometimes treat prayer. Maybe I’m learning something about prayer after all.