When we pray about things that have already been decided, we are wasting our time and possibly missing divine moments. At the same time, we are not positioned to seize divine moments when we neglect to pray. Prayer keeps us in step with God's Spirit and in tune to His voice. If we are living prayerless lives, then we should heed the call of the apostle Paul to pray without ceasing. Our lives are to be a continuous conversation with God. This kind of prayer life is one where we are sensitive to every prompting and whisper of God. We are not informing God, but God is informing us. He becomes an active and intimate participant in our daily choices.
Prayer is an obstacle when we keep praying about things about which God has already spoken. If He has commanded us in His Word, there is nothing to pray about really -- we just need to obey. Prayer can be an obstacle when we hide behind prayer while the moment requires action. There are moments when it is too late for prayer. It is when God has already spoken and we are late to the appointment. When that's the case, we need to run. We don't need to pray about loving. We are already commanded to love. We don't need to pray about forgiving. We are already commanded to forgive. We don't need to pray about being in community or confessing our faith. Neither do we need to pray about whether we should be arrogant or humble, takers or givers, indulgers or servers. God has already spoken on all these issues and more. When we do pray on these matters, God confirms what He has said with a little "what are you waiting for?" thrown in.
In 1 Samuel 14, Saul was praying when he should have been obeying. It is quite possible that we commit the same sin on a regular basis. Do we use prayer as a way of resisting God's will rather than as a way of accessing His will. Jesus did not value prayer for prayer's sake. He valued it for the intimate communion it created between Him and His Father. The purpose of prayer is to know God and, in knowing Him, to hear His voice and to understand that God has heard our voices. The end result of these kinds of prayers are hearts pliable enough to move wherever God is calling.
The purpose of prayer is to keep us connected, and when we're connected to God, we are moving with Him. Prayer that connects us to God positions us to seize divine moments. This kind of prayer gives us the courage to live the lives of adventurers. Prayer should move us, not paralyze us. And when we pray with an intent to obey, we become magnets that draw others into God's presence. We can choose to establish a monument for prayer or to pray to unleash a movement. One is religious, the other revolutionary.
In 1 Kings 18 we step into one of history's most unique prayer meetings: Elijah v. the prophets of Ba'al. If we examine the passage carefully, we find that the prophets of Ba'al far exceeded Elijah in both time and effort in prayer. Two altars were established. The prophets and Elijah were to pray to their deities and invoke them to send fire from heaven, and whichever deity answered, all those who were in attendance would then conclude that He was the one, true God. The prophets of Ba'al prayed from morning until noon: "'O Ba'al, answer us!' they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made" [1 Kings 18:26]. About noon Elijah began to taunt them: "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. [1 Kings 27-29]
They had prayed long and hard. There was, however, one small problem. The god they were praying to was no god at all. It is a terrible thing when we waste our lives of prayer on the wrong god!
Elijah, on the other hand, prayed a very brief prayer: "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again" [1 Kings 18:36-37]. End of prayer.
The Scriptures then described what happened at that very instant: "Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, 'The Lord -- He is God! The Lord -- He is God!" [vv. 38-39].
The truth of the matter is this: Around the world people pray, and there are endless numbers of religions where people pray both earnestly and incessantly. Some pray five times a day facing east; others have escaped the noisiness of the real world and have locked themselves away in caves or castles that they may only pray. I do not believe that God calls any one of us to a life of prayer that forever isolates us from the world around us. The same God who calls us to meet Him in the solitude of a lonely place also commissions us to return to the crowded streets where people desperately need a touch from the living God. Elijah, himself, gave us tremendous insight into the very purpose of prayer: "Answer me, Lord, so that everyone can know that You are God and that I am your servant simply doing what you have commanded me."
Small prayers can have enormous impacts when they come from people who are living lives of obedience to God. Elijah wasn't praying then obeying. He was obeying then praying. When we pray before we obey, we imply that we are the initiators in our relationships with God. When we obey and then pray, we acknowledge that God has initiated the relationships with us. God has spoken. He sent the first word. Our first response is to hear His voice and move in alignment to His commands. Out of that obedience our intimacy with Him grows, and then when we speak to Him, He answers us and makes Himself known.
In all of his errors, there was one thing that Saul got right. When the battle around him became too loud for Saul to pray, he recognized that there was no time for praying. It was time to to obey [past time really]. God was already clearly at work. He needed to mobilize the people of God and get in on what God was doing. I am reminded of Samuel's question to Saul at a later time: "Why did you not obey the Lord?" And Samuel's reminder to him: "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams" [1 Samuel 15:19, 22].
There are moments when our obedience is to stop and pray, and in those moments comes the word that we must go and obey. And it is in this obedience that the voice of God becomes intimately clear.
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