No Wasted Prayer

I know I've already written about prayer a couple times lately, but it's the topic that has really been on my heart this month. This post is kind of a follow-up to what I recently wrote on prayer here.

What God has been teaching me lately is that our prayers are never, ever wasted. Our prayers will bear fruit, even if we don't see it for years. We may not even know when it happens, but it will happen. The prayers you are fervently praying now could be answered in your life, or in someone else's life--years from now. We may not always recognize the answers when they come or understand how our lives would be different if we hadn't prayed. But it's not like prayers that don't get answered immediately just disappear into this Neverland of prayers which haven't produced results.

What this means is that we need to exhibit greater spiritual tenacity in our prayer lives. I really think that stubbornness can be a spiritual asset, because it is the trait that allows us to keep persisting in our prayers and to just keep storming the gates of heaven with our prayers, trusting that they will produce results even if we may never fully know what those results are and how they come about.

And what if we simply don't know what or how to pray anymore? A lot of Christians over the years have recommended praying through parts of the Bible and using the prayers in Scripture as models for our own prayers. This is a great place to start.

In Isaiah 55, God promises that the Word which He speaks will never return to Him void, but that it will accomplish His purposes. I think it's safe to also say that God's Word will never return void to people who speak it--and pray it--with genuine faith. I get excited about what could happen if more people would be willing to make some of the greatest, most heartfelt, most faith-fueled prayers in Scripture their own prayers. I hope to sometime write a series on some of these prayers.

We need to get tenacious in our prayers. For many things in our lives, we don't have because we don't ask God.

The only prayer that's wasted is the one that we don't pray.