Pray Like a Believer

At our previous assignment our church didn't have many older people. Our church prayer list was not usually about health issues. One of the adjustments we've made since being back in a PCA church is the older folks. And with that seems to come prayer lists almost exclusively about health problems.

Good health is certainly something to thank God for each day; but I see room for improvement in the way we pray for those who are suffering. The prayers are not done out of faith. I'm not saying we should "claim the healing" or anything like that. Our prayers for those who suffer should be for them to believe God's promises throughout their illness. And for them to rest confident in the fact that the difficulty is of the Lord and for a beneficial purpose. This glorifies God and seeks the person's best. We should want godliness more than good health. Instead, our prayers are mostly faithless pleas to God to heal the person as soon as it's His will, completely ignoring His purpose in the pain.

Also speaking of prayer, today I read and enjoyed Jeffrey Meyer's article "Formal Corporate Prayer". Here's an excerpt that's relevant to my comments above.

"You know very well what happens when there is no guidance or direction to the prayers. Prayers become tedious: "I just want to thank you, Lord. . . and I just want to ask. . . and I just want. . ." Or they become trivial and down right silly: "O Lord, help us to be all that we can be" (the Army Prayer) or "Lord, help us to reach out and touch somebody this week" (the AT&T prayer)

"...here’s the important point: if the child never grows up and learns how to pray biblically, if the content of his prayers remain the same, then it’s not so cute anymore. God may be pleased with a childlike prayer, but he is not satisfied with it either. He expects us to grow up and learn how to pray like adults, to inform our prayers more and more to the models He has given us in the Scriptures.

"Some churches never get beyond praying for sick people and saying grace at the table. That’s fine as far as it goes, but have you ever noticed that the Bible doesn’t contain a whole lot of prayers for sick people and pretty much assumes that we know how to give thanks for our food? Again, I’m not talking here about a fancy, flowing style. My concern centers on the content of the prayers: confession of sin; thanking God for creation and providence; thanking God for the person and work of Christ; praying for strength in the midst of temptation; praying that His kingdom would be protected from all its enemies and extended throughout the world. These are petitions that do not come "naturally" to us. We need to be trained."