Prayer Power

The Lord leaves a lot up to us and our concern and prayer. If we only pray halfheartedly, we only get half an answer. But if we pray with our whole heart, we get a wholehearted, strong answer. Like a beam of light focused on a mirror, a prayer will reflect or be answered with the same intensity that it was prayed.

The game of pocket billiards, or pool, also makes a fitting analogy. There are a number of variations of the game, but all are played on a six-pocket billiard table and have the same basic object: to use a cue ball to knock other balls into the pockets.

The player controls the original force and direction in which the cue ball is set in motion, and that determines everything else that happens. Prayer works much the same way. The position of each of the people or situations involved has a bearing on what happens next, but the way in which we pray for them also helps determine the outcome. The way we word or express our prayer and the way we ask God to answer are like the way we hit the cue ball. The force, the angle, and the spin we put on it all work together to help determine the outcome.

The lead player is God. He made the break shot that scattered the balls originally. Shot by shot, He and you and the other players keep changing the position of the balls. The only difference is, God is not trying to beat you. He’s actually trying to help you win, if you’re on His side.

It’s like playing doubles: Your partner is God, and your opponents are the Devil and his ilk. Your partner, God, tries to set up your next shot for you. But of course, no matter how well God sets things up, if you don’t shoot straight, it won’t do any good.

And no matter how good your aim is, that target ball (the person or situation you’re praying about) has to be in a position where you can hit it right.

Let’s take radio waves for another illustration. Say you’re going to send a radio message via satellite, for someone on the other side of the world to pick up. First of all, your transmitter won’t have any power unless it’s plugged into the current. Next, your transmitter has to be in good condition. If it’s faulty or out of whack or tuned to the wrong frequency, it won’t transmit properly and it won’t get the message through clearly. Also, the antenna has to be aimed so that the message is beamed in exactly the right direction to hit the relay satellite.

In this illustration, you are the transmitter and antenna, the Holy Spirit provides the power, and God’s will is the satellite. If your set is automated so that the Holy Spirit is in control, then it’s automatically tuned just right—power, beam, direction, everything—by the Lord’s own computer, and it can’t miss. But if you’ve been fooling around with the dials and the settings, you can mess up the whole works by trying to do it your way. Also, the satellite of God’s will has to be in the right position to bounce it down to the intended recipient, and the recipient has got to be in the right position and have his receiver turned on in order to receive it.

Prayer depends on these four principal factors: your position, God’s position, the position of the person or situation you’re praying for, and the way you pray.

In the pocket billiards illustration, it depends on the positions of the cue ball, the target ball, the pocket, and the way you shoot. You don’t control the outcome completely, the person you’re praying for doesn’t control it completely, and God has specifically limited Himself not to control it completely, but to let it be affected by these other factors.

In the radio transmission illustration, the position of His satellite is set, but how it is used depends on you and the recipient. In other words, God has set the position of His overall plans, but how you fit into the plan depends on your position, the position of the person or thing you’re praying for, and whether or not your beam is aimed right to hit the satellite.

So God has left a lot up to you and a lot up to them. He will always do His part. If it’s according to God’s will—what He knows is best for everyone concerned—and you and the object of your prayer are in the right position and you aim straight, your prayer will hit the target and have the desired effect.

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Mark 11:24 ESV – Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Luke 11:9 ESV – And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

1 Timothy 2:1 ESV – First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,