Partnership

When someone asks us to pray for them, they are asking for our prayers in their behalf.  But, it is also true that they are giving us an invitation to enter into a partnership with God as He seeks to work in the life of the one asking for prayers.  We sometimes wonder why God does not just act independently of everything going on around Him.  Certainly, He could.  As we read the Scripture there are times when it appears that God acts simply because He chooses.  Not every act of God is precipitated by the prayer of some faithful saint of God.  Still, the Word encourages us to pray.

And, we do.  While we are often tempted to think that the more the better when it comes to praying, what we know as truth is that the prayer of one person is heard by God and is useful to Him in accomplishing what He is about in the world.  The story of Daniel tells us about a man whose praying made a difference.  Elijah is another man who prayed alone and found himself in the middle of a great work of God.  Both of these Old Testament saints partnered with God in prayer and saw amazing things happening in their lives.

The same truth is operative in our day.  For some reason God chooses to use our prayers to accomplish what He is working toward in the lives of those who seek our prayers.  Understanding exactly how this happens is beyond the realm of human understanding, but we see too many examples of it happening to deny it works that way. We may think of ourselves in many ways, but partners in prayer should be one that encourages us to stay at it for extraordinary things are happening every day with God and He regards us as His partners in this amazing work.