The Downside of Prayer

Everything in life has an upside and a down side!  The up’s we consider to be positive and the downs are negative. 

So what’s the upside to prayer? 

Our God is listening.

What we say is important to Him.

We decrease and He increases in terms of Dependency.

And most importantly, God answers prayer!

So what’s the downside?

• (long pause) I can only think of one negative in prayer and that’s when God says WAIT.

There are many instances in scripture where people had to wait for God to do His will; none more obvious than Acts 1 and 2 where Jesus made a promise to send the Holy Spirit on His followers.  His command was simply “wait for the promise,” and 10 days they waited.

As a young boy I can remember my mother praying for a newer house to live in.  For years we lived in an old house sitting on cinder blocks.  Our pipes would freeze every winter and there was no air conditioning.  My mother would pray for wisdom and direction and one day she came home to announce to my sister and I that she and dad had found a newer house and were going to ask the church to allow it to be purchased as a parsonage (that is a house owned by the church where pastors live). 

Long story short…the church said NO, but God was saying WAIT!

The wait was bittersweet for we all wanted it now, but what God gave later was ten times better.  That’s the way God works in our prayer lives.  He knows the end from the beginning and if we will just wait for the ‘promise’ it will be better than what we wanted in the first place.

Please don’t pray in a hurry.  Be willing to wait and see what God really wants.

I’ll meet you at the throne,

Pastor George