“13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will restore him to health; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit.”
James 5:13-18
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Prayers are precious things and a privilege to participate in. Each one is a journey before the throne of God and we really need to take that fact into our understanding. As His children, we need to be confident that He hears us as we stand before Him and that we’re not just speaking to the ceiling or lobbing requests at the clouds. Instead, when we pray, we are coming as adopted sons and daughters to the King, heirs of His promises and we need to know that He takes what we have to say seriously. So, when we pray, come before Him, acknowledging Him directly and in faith. Trust that He hears you and that He cares.

I have seen the sick cured, pains removed and true peace given to the dying. I have seen lives restored, redeemed and renewed thanks to honest, faithful prayer. I have full confidence that God will accomplish all that lies within His will if we will simply come to Him in faith. And sometimes, a lot of times for me, if what I want lies outside of His will, He will help bring us into correction and an understanding of what He really desires for us if we will humbly come and seek His will in prayer. But we must have faith. We must believe.

It is easy to flippantly toss a request up in the sky and then move on, but that is not what we are told to do. When we pray, we must come with the urgency that is on our hearts, we must come with the earnestness that speaks to real need. If we don’t care about what we’re praying for, if we are not really acknowledging it or Him, don’t you think that plays into how our requests are received. When you pray for the sick, do you sincerely pray that they would be healed, believing they will be, or do you pray like healing is a long shot and really believe that nothing miraculous can happen? When you pray for the hurting and broken, do you pray that God will move in their hearts through His Spirit, believing that He will do a work in them, or do you pray to comfort them, quietly hoping that time will remedy the situation?

If we are going to GoLove people in Jesus’ Name, we need to believe what we are telling to them and we need to be sincere with what we pray for them. Prayer is not just a babbling into the wind, prayer is an ushering before the Throne of God and a petition in His presence. We must pray in faith if we want to be heard and see change happen. Half hearted, half cared about prayers are ineffective and fall short. But when we boldly come, seeking His will (that means leaving prideful, human, fleshly desires out of the mix) and believing that He hears, cares and will respond, we can trust that He will do what is right.