Praying in Faith

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. (James 5:13-18, NIV)


REFLECTIONS:
To many people, prayer makes absolutely no sense. To someone with no idea of God, prayer looks at best like an odd superstition and at worst like a serious self-deception. Imagine just talking to yourself and thinking it will make a difference to anything! But throughout history, people from almost all cultures and traditions have been aware of other dimensions which seem mysteriously to intersect with our own. The ancient Jewish tradition, which comes to fresh and vital expression in Jesus himself and in his early followers, sharpens up this vague awareness of Something Else into not only Someone Else but a named Someone: the God we know in, through, and as Jesus himself. Suddenly, prayer makes all the sense in the world.

Over the last several weeks we've been highlighting various features of prayer in our daily devotionals. Prayer is meant to surround everything we do, whether we are sad or happy, suffering or cheerful. The psalms are there, to this day, as the natural prayer book of Jesus' followers (verse 13), even though many Christians today seem to ignore them altogether. Anointing with oil is there, to this day, as a very simple yet profound and effective sign of God's longing to heal people (verse 14). Like prayer itself, such an act is mysterious; yet, for those who take what James says seriously, it is full of meaning and power. And forgiveness is there, to this day, as the great open door, the fresh possibility, the chance of a new start, for all who will confess the sin which is dragging them down, and will join in prayer for healing (verse 16).

Like his brother Jesus, James seems to have seen a connection between sin and sickness. Jesus warned (in John 9) against making too close a link, but at other times, for instance in Mark 2:1-12, it seems that forgiveness and healing went hand-in-hand. Maybe these are the two things which push to the forefront when we take our stand in the place where prayer makes sense—the place where heaven and earth overlap, the place where our own present time and God's future time overlap.

After all, that's what Christian prayer  is all about (as well as the oher sacraments, for that matter). Prayer isn't just me calling out in the dark to a distant and unknown God. It means what it means and does what it does because God is, as James promised, very near to those who draw near to him (James 4:8). Heaven and earth meet when, in the Spirit, someone calls on the name of the Lord. And it means what it means and does what it does because God's new time has broken into the continuing time of this old, distorted world, so that the person praying stands with one foot in the place of trouble and sickness and sin and with the other foot in the place of healing and forgiveness and hope. Prayer brings the latter to bear on the former.

To really understand all of this and to live it out requires us to use our God-given imagination. But once we've grasped it, prayer begins to have its way with us and fulfill the purpose for which it was ordained. And, it suddenly begins to make sense.

That's why James highlights one of the greatest examples of prayer in all of Scripture, the prophet Elijah. There are many lessons we can draw from Elijah's story in 1 Kings 17-18, but we might not have grasped the point that James is making: that the drought which came as judgment on the people of Israel, and the rain which came when they returned to the Lord, all happened in the context of Elijah's prayer. And, as James points out, prayer is not only a task for the "professionals," the clergy and Christian leaders. Each and every one of us has not only the right but the calling to engage in prayer like that, prayer for one another, prayer for the sick, prayer for the sinners, prayer for the nation and the world. If we would but determine to devote half an hour every day to the practice of prayer, the effect could be incalculable.


PRAYER:
Father, thank you for inviting us to approach your throne in faith. Thank you for granting us the opportunity to fellowship with you, the living God, through prayer. We confess our selfishness and our pride and our judgmental spirits. We recognize and confess that we have actively embraced wrongdoing of all sorts. And we confess that we have failed to actively seek after your kingdom and your righteousness with a wholehearted devotion. We confess our lack of faith and ask that your grace might work powerfully within us to strengthen our trust in you. In the powerful name of Christ Jesus, and with as much faith as we can muster, we ask for healing—for ourselves and for our fellow believers. Just as Elijah earnestly prayed with confidence, we boldly lift our prayers before your throne with the confident assurance that you hear our requests because of your Son. We love you, Father. Thank you for loving us with such generosity and faithfulness!


WHO AM I?
I am Tres Sansom, and this past Saturday our family spent the day at Pedernales Falls State Park. What a beautiful place! We had a blast picnicking and swimming in the river.