The Purpose and Results of Prayer

This World Prayer Night, I want to humble myself before God and make myself ready for approaching His almighty presence. My good friend, and accountability and prayer partner, has been "provoking me" to look deeper into prayer. “What does it DO?”

She is a nurse, so we talked about all of the positive physical outcomes, but in the Spiritual Realm - what does it do? We know that God is consistent and unchanging - so is the purpose of prayer to prompt God to do something – like a child before parents, or to have an effect within ourselves? I know this is going to be an ongoing discovery for Karen and I, but I made some discoveries myself today that lead into my prayers for this World Prayer Night.

From Purpose of Prayer’s (Executable Outlines) I found many outcomes of prayer, and that
“In August 2005, Newsweek and Beliefnet asked 1,004 Americans what they believe
and how they practice their faith. One of the questions was:  What do you think is
the most important purpose of prayer?  Here are their responses...

   a. To seek God's guidance (27%)

   b. To thank God (23%)

   c. To be close to God or the divine (19%)

   d. To help others (13%)

   e. To improve a person's life (9%)

   f. Other (4%)

   g. Don't know (5%)

All of these have an interesting back-story for the person answering, I am sure. There are so many leaders in this area for more devotion, more structure, more discipline that I have found so helpful in having a constant mind on God – Brother Lawrence, George A Buttrick, John Baille, Martin Luther.

Evelyn Underhill gave some great answers to “What do we mean by prayer?” in her books, “The Essentials of Mysticism,” a selection from “Mysticism” A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness”

In my searching, I ultimately found what I think is close to the main point of prayer - that prayer forces us to realign our lives with God’s will, not the other way around. “Prayer interferes with our own ambitions and our personal agendas. Prayer forces us to surrender our independence and submit to God.” What is the Purpose of Prayer? (Focus on God)

With this mindset, I pray that in these prayers for the world, God will open my mind to understanding that the objective is surrender to His Will. Today, my prayers for the world are mostly thanksgiving – for God in my life to help me understand His will and focus on Him, andor friends like Karen in my world.ving - for God will open my mind to understanding His Will helpful in having, for friends like Karen in my world.