The Power and Purpose of Prayer
by Betty Luginbill
One possibility when prayer requests come is to pray immediately with the person who is requesting it for themselves or for someone else, “Let’s pray for her right now.” The longer the delay before praying, the greater the chance is that the prayer request will not be fulfilled. It is possible to pray for a person or situation without going into the exhausting details. The purpose of the prayer is to bring the love and power of Jesus into whatever the need may be. “Where two or three people are gathered in my name, I am with them.”
Agnes Sanford wrote, “The first step in seeking to produce results by any power is to contact that power.” Sometimes we need to go to a quiet place to concentrate on bringing the power and love of Jesus into the situation.
How long do we pray at any one time? I found that when I begin to say, “Thank you, Jesus,” I feel like God has come into that situation in a new way.
I may continue to thank God or pray longer, and the spirit of thankfulness will come again. It seems as if God has done all that can be done through me at that moment. It doesn’t seem to mean that more prayer isn’t needed at a later time, but most healing or other needs improve in a slower process rather than instantly, once and for all.
It takes time to change. Some of the best advice I ever had was when a lawyer said, “It took you eleven years to get your self into this situation and you are not going to get out of it in two weeks. The improvement when God enters a situation may take place instantly, but for a permanent change, it may take much longer.
People who wish to quit smoking may decide in an instant, but on the average it takes about five tries before they succeed. Every time they try, improves their chances of ending the habit. At other times when we pray for others, we begin to have a deep sense of peace. Some of the fruits of the Spirit are listed as love, joy, and peace. If we are praying for another person, quite often the person will say, “The pain is less now” or “I feel a deep sense of peace.”
At one small workshop for healing, I asked if there was anyone who was hurting in any way and one woman spoke up. She said her arm and shoulder were hurting so much that she could hardly sit there. I asked if there were others who had had this same problem and two people raised their hands on her and began to pray. We prayed for about five minutes silently, and then I asked her if there was any improvement.
She said, “Yes, some of the pain is gone.” We continued to pray and after about another five minutes she could raise her arm over her head and move it back and forth. The strange part was that my sister who was having the same arm and shoulder pain had been relieved of her pain at the same time. She lives over 1,000 miles away! She said that when it disappeared she thought that I must be praying for it. We had talked just before I left for the workshop.
Sometimes the setting for prayer is anything but quiet. Jesus sometimes took the person to a quiet place, but other times he healed when people were all around.
One day, I was in the drug store and the check-out clerk was on the phone. There were two or three of us in line and I began to talk to the young man behind me. He said he could hardly stand there because he was trying to get some medicine for the terrible migraine headache that he was having. I felt so sorry for him because I used to have migraine headaches. I reached up and put my hand on his forehead and silently prayed. In a very short time, he had this surprised look on his face and said, “My headache is gone!”
Another time, I was at a square dance and a ninety year old man began to get a cluster headache. These are similar to migraine headaches, except more severe. He would have them for a week at a time and had had them for years. He went out to his van to rest and I asked his wife if she thought he would like me to pray for him and she said, “Yes.” I went out and asked him if he would like me to lay hands on his head and pray for him and he said, “Yes.” I prayed for about ten minutes and then went in and danced and came out a second time, prayed for him with laying on of hands and went home. He went in and danced.
There was a long lasting improvement and about three years later, one morning I felt totally compelled to drive out in the country and visit this couple. He was having a headache and I laid hands on him and prayed once more. It was the first time that the headache had returned.
The power did not come from me in any of these cases, but God was able to use me as a channel for healing. As one person said, “It is not our ability; it is our availability.” We are able to do what the person in pain or in trouble cannot do at that moment. God’s healing power is not restricted to Christians or to people who believe in a certain way, but is available to all. Jesus never stopped to ask people if they had “politically or theologically correct” ideas. His love and compassion was available when people asked for it. The woman who was Gentile, asked for the healing of her daughter. She had to persist in her request, but Jesus healed even at a distance.
How to we get started? My own struggle was over several years. It began in church one early Easter morning. A man in a wheel chair rolled himself to the front of the church to ask for prayer. The minister called the lay leader to the front to help pray and lay hands on this man and I felt a very strong urge to go up and be a part of this team. I literally had to hang on to the pew to keep from going up until the time had passed. I had never been in a church where this was practiced.
The guilt that I suffered afterwards was devastating. However, I went through this type of thing several more times, until I finally could not stand the guilt anymore. I finally promised God that I would pray and lay hands on my own family members when they were ill, and I was at peace. God took me at my word, and reminded me when the time came.
When we don’t follow out inclinations toward good, when we don’t ask people if they would like us to pray for them, we have made the choice for them. We have decided that they would not like the opportunity. We worry about the result, but the results are in the hands of a very loving God whom we can trust completely. Yes, we will get turned down sometimes, but it may be the first time they have been asked.
Not every need that comes our way may be ours to pray for. Sometimes God does say, “Not this time!” If the prompting is very strong and I am still reluctant, I ask God, “Is this from you, Lord?” and either the necessity to go ahead is stronger or the feeling departs completely.
The power of the Holy Spirit is the strongest in the places where quite often it is the hardest to step out in intercessory prayer. We have set up barriers of race, color, nationality, church denominations, gender, age, classicism, income levels, intellectual and physical abilities, and even living conditions. When we begin to see all people as children of God, the power to act as God wants you to act, intensifies greatly. We experience the greatness of God and our love and joy increases. In John 6:2 it says, “a large crowd of people followed him (Jesus) because they had seen the signs he performed in healing the sick.” They even all ate together. Our witness to the love and power of God will increase as we cast out the demons of pride in “our kind of people” and see others as God sees them. The world needs our intercessory prayers as much as we need to do it.
When prayer is needed at a distance, and it may not even be possible to pray with a person or situation that needs it, it may be more difficult. There are people who seem to be able to pray every day for years for a given need. This is probably true where family members are involved. If we don’t pray for our families, who will?
However, I have found that the 21 day method works for me. It takes 21 days to hatch new life in a baby chick as someone pointed out, but a mother hen only sits on a dozen eggs. Try making twelve ovals on a page and put in twelve names or situations. Pray for 21 days.
The first week will be easy. The second week is harder. The third week is extremely difficult. Change is not easy and it seems as if it is impossible. I have heard people say there was improvement in all of their prayer recipients. That has not been my experience. One time a person just got worse every day. I finally cried out to God, “I think I am making things worse!” The answer came back, “If people get better, everyone has gained. If they get worse, it won’t be only you that sees it, others will see it also, and something will be done about it.” People may get worse in their effort to remain exactly where they are. The freedom to choose is always ours.
While we don’t exactly know how healing takes place, we do know that it is God’s presence that makes it possible. God wanted people healed as we know Jesus’ last command, “Do all that I have commanded you to do.”
Betty Luginbill is an OSL member. Sharing A Journal of Christian Healing.
May/June 2010