PRAYER THAT PROVES GOD TO A WATCHING WORLD

Many people, perhaps most, limit their prayers to pleas for personal comfort or help. God certainly hears the cries of His children to protect and provide for them. But this is only one part of prayer’s purpose.

PRAYER PROVES GOD

God desires to use prayer as a means to bring Him into the equation. In so doing, He shows the world He is really here and active. He is glorified as His children let the world see who He really is by His active response to their prayers.

Ezra had been given the authority to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, taking as many of the Jewish people with him as needed. This was a miraculous provision given as God moved on the heart of King Artaxerxes.

Wise Ezra, always mindful that everything good that was happening occurred because the “gracious hand of God” was upon them, started out and then stopped by the River and prepared for the journey.

I proclaimed a fast by the Ahava River, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us, our dependents, and all our possessions. I did this because I was ashamed to ask the king for infantry and cavalry to protect us from enemies during the journey, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek him, but his fierce anger is against all who abandon him.” So, we fasted and pleaded with our God about this, and he was receptive to our prayer. (Ezra 8:21-23)

Ezra could have enlisted the foreign king’s army. But he had proclaimed to the king that it was not needed. He had boasted in God … and now He comes to pray with all the people, with fasting, that God would show the pagan king and all his people that God was powerfully sufficient. That He really does take care of all those who look to him.

God heard and answered that prayer … and the world saw God.

PRAYING BIG, GOD-HONORING PRAYERS

I wonder if we’re praying that way? If our prayers to the Father, generated by His Spirit within us, are more than just personal requests? If they have a greater motive … to display God to a watching world?

George Mueller never asked men for anything for his orphans in Bristol, England, even though he was taking care of, at times, 2,000 orphans a day. He wanted to go directly to God for their needs, and he had a purpose: to show that God was a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God. At his death, he had a record of 40,000 direct answers God had given. The world saw God, and this testimony will stand till the end of time and beyond.

Pray big, God-initiated prayers, not merely for yourself, but to prove God to a world that desperately needs to see Him.