Oh, may God open our eyes to see and feel the needs around us and the great potential of prayer!
John Piper
We referred recently to an article by David Wells about prayer as rebellion against the status quo.((David Wells, “Prayer: Rebelling against the status quo“.)) Wells argued that it is resignation that destroys petitionary prayer: our lack of prayer is in effect an acceptance that things will continue as they are. Instead of praying, we “strike a truce with what is wrong”. It’s a helpful and insightful article. However, I would like to argue that there is also something else at work. We fail to pray, and we fail to pray effectively so often because we don’t see things as they are.((This arises in part because of our failure to be still long enough to hear what the Spirit of God is saying to us—but that’s an article for another day! )) It is a recognised part of the way that we perceive things that we tend to notice things that change. So, when circumstances continue more or less the same over a long period of time, we stop noticing them. Many years ago, when our children were small, my wife and I moved into a house in Bodmin. When we moved in, we had some cardboard boxes with a metal rail that the removal firm gave us to put clothes in during the move. We had no money to buy wardrobes, but those boxes served us well for the children’s clothes for several years. We stopped noticing the cardboard. But, years later, I think when somebody came to stay, we suddenly felt ashamed that we did not have proper wardrobes. Something made us notice what we had lived with for years without seeing them.
It is my contention that we have grown so used to our spiritual circumstances that we fail to see things as they really are. This is true in three areas:
- We fail to see the need
- We fail to see the power and the love of God
- We fail to see the power of our prayer
We don’t see the need
Nehemiah’s vision
We can become so used to things as they are that we fail to recognise the fact that they need to change. This is powerfully illustrated in the story of Nehemiah. One of the reasons that Nehemiah was such a great leader is that he saw things in a way that others did not. He had a privileged position in the Persian court. When he received the report of how bad things were in far off Judah and Jerusalem, it affected him deeply. He sat down and wept. This may not seem remarkable, given the suffering of his fellow Jews and the humiliation of his nation. But it is the crucial first step in the whole story. Without that initial emotional response, none of the rest of the story would have happened. There would have been no remarkable leadership, no remarkable rescue, no remarkable galvanising of faith to draw on God’s power. All begins with seeing the need and being impacted by it.
To reinforce the point, it seems to me that one of the first things that Nehemiah did to stir up the Jews in Jerusalem to action was to open their eyes to the need. After secretly surveying the ruins of the walls of the city, he begins his call to action with, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire.” (Neh 2:17). Of course, the inhabitants of Jerusalem already knew that the walls were in ruins, but just like us with our cardboard wardrobes, they had stopped noticing. Nehemiah helped them to notice. They had got used to picking their way around the broken stones and they never gave a thought to whether they could repair them. An essential part of the genius of Nehemiah’s leadership was helping them to see both the problem and that there was a way out of it.
Lack of vision in the Church in the West
I believe that there is a parallel with the situation in much of the Church in the comfortable West. In our material lives we are comfortable. But spiritually we live among ruins, in a society where tolerance is king, right is called wrong and wrong is called right. Materialism drowns out the voice of the Spirit and God for the majority is irrelevant to their lives. Broken stones indeed!(( Stephen McAlpine’s book, “Being the Bad Guys”, The Good Book Company, 2021, gives an excellent insight and some ideas on the way forward.))
Sadly, in much of the church we seem to be like the Jews living amongst the ruins before Nehemiah came. There is little sense of urgency or that God can change things. I’m including myself in this! We pick our way among the broken stones of a church that is worldly and lukewarm. Instead of crying to God to repair the foundations and rebuild the walls, we focus on living among the ruins. We train our disciples for maintenance when what we need is a radical rebuild. We see those around us heading for a lost eternity and yet we lack any sense of urgency in our prayers or our actions. When we gather we settle for tasters of God’s presence, when God wants to reveal himself in power.(( A W Tozer, in his book, The Pursuit of God, (Christian Publications, Inc., 1948 – available on Kindle for £0.11!) wrote of the important difference between “the Presence and the manifestation of the Presence [of God]” p64. In his preface he describes the empty orthodoxy of those who minister correct biblical truths and yet seem “strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest presence…” p.8))
Let’s ask God to open our eyes to the need that surrounds us. Maybe, as God answers that prayer, our first step should be, like Nehemiah, to sit down and weep.
Instead of crying to God to repair the foundations and rebuild the walls, we focus on living among the ruins.
We don’t see the power and the love of God
We fail to see that God both wants to change things and is abundantly able to change things.
Nehemiah’s vision of the love of God was rooted in his understanding of the covenant promises of God. In chapter one he bases his prayer on God’s promise to gather his scattered people if they repented (Neh 1:8-9)
In the face of opposition and unbelief he is confident,
“The God of heaven will give us success.”
“Our God will fight for us!”
Neh 2:20 and 4:20)
Seeing the power of God
It is significant that Paul’s great prayer for the Ephesian believers was that their eyes would be opened so that they could see among other things the great power of God—”his incomparably great power for us who believe” (Eph 1:19). This is the same power over every evil force that was demonstrated when he raised Christ from the dead and placed him in authority over absolutely everything (Eph 1:20-21).
Seeing the love of God
Having prayed that the Ephesians would understand the power of God on their behalf, Paul prays in chapter 3 that they may similarly grasp the vast extent of the love of Christ for them (Eph 3:17-18).
Truly grasping the love of Christ for us is a lifelong battle, but one that every believer needs to engage in. (It is the same idea, I believe, as the “fight for joy” that John Piper exhorts upon us.((This especially in his book, When I Don’t Desire God, How to Fight for Joy)))
Like Paul, we need to help one another and also help ourselves by asking God for this ability to see.
We don’t see the power of our prayer
Unless we see the potential of our own prayers, we will not apply ourselves to praying effectively. It is no good seeing either the great need or the great power of God if we do not grasp the role that God has given us to be agents of change through prayer.
Examples of the power of prayer in the Old Testament
Nehemiah understood this truth when he prayed and fasted for ruined Jerusalem. He claimed God’s promise to bring his people back from exile if they turned again to him. Similarly, Daniel understood from the prophet Jeremiah that the exile should come to an end after 70 years and began to pray that God would restore his people to their land (Dan 9:2-3). Both understood that prayer was the means of bringing about deliverance.
Not long after their escape from Egypt, the Israelites had to fight for their lives against the Amalekites (see Ex 17:8-13). Moses went up on a hill overlooking the battle. He lifted up his hands in prayer for God’s help in the battle. As long as he held up his hands, Israel prevailed in the battle. But when he grew tired and lowered his hands, the Amalekites began to regain control. So Aaron and Hur sat Moses down on a stone and then stood on either side of him and held up his hands until sunset and the Amalekites were defeated. Joshua had fought the battle, but it had been won through the power of sustained and united prayer. What a wonderful example of the power of prayer!
New Testament examples of the power of prayer
My New Testament examples are taken from the life of Jesus. He knew that Peter was going to be tested and he warned him about it in Luke 22:31-32. Jesus knew just how big a deal this was going to be in the life of Peter. Peter habitually covered up his weakness with bluster and bravado, but all of that was about to be exposed and it was going to be devastating for him. Jesus knew that. But he did not sit down with Peter and give him strategies for how to overcome temptation: The strategy of Jesus was prayer:
But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.
This was a crucial moment in the history of the Church. It had not begun and yet a key “rock” of its foundation was about to be in peril of losing his faith. But Jesus knew the power of prayer, and he was not fazed.
Jesus himself, when he approached the greatest time of trial in his life, turned to prayer. He cried to God at Gethsemane, and he urged the disciples to do the same (Luke 22:46).
We too must see the power of prayer. We must understand at a deep level how much difference prayer can make.
Conclusion
Oh, may God open our eyes to see and feel the needs around us and the great potential of prayer!((From a sermon, Be Devoted to Prayer, 29th Dec, 2002))
John Piper
A different kind of seeing
This kind of seeing goes way beyond a merely intellectual understanding. It involves an emotional connection that causes us to be deeply impacted. It is the difference between seeing a picture of the Grand Canyon and being there looking out over its vastness, awe-inspired by its immensity and humbled by a sense of your own smallness.((John Piper often uses this illustration. E.g. sermon, Self-Esteem won’t save you, Nov 1st, 2017)) It is the difference between saying you believe that God is holy and being so overwhelmed by his holiness that all you can do is lie on your face before him. It is the difference between saying that you believe that God loves you and being thrilled to the core by the amazing security and affirmation of being loved by the God of the universe. I do not mean to say that we must live on an emotional high. That would not be sustainable. I am trying to convey the truth that perception is key. I want to stir us up that there is more to be seen and known than we have yet experienced and that we must not settle for a humdrum, banal routine that knows nothing in reality of the power and majesty and love of God.
We are a part of an unfolding story
A friend of mine encouraged me recently that we should read the New Testament not as a historical narrative of events long past, but as an unfolding story that we are a part of. That blessed me. God is still at work, and we are a part of it. We can still expect him to do great things.
Rebuilding instead of living with the ruins
If our eyes are opened to see even a tiny part of the need around us, of the power and the love of God and of the powerful potential of prayer, then God will use us. Instead of being resigned to the status quo, he will make us his agents of change; instead of striking a truce with what is wrong, we will be a means of bringing his mighty power and love to bear to make things right. Instead of stepping over the broken stones, we will follow the Nehemiahs who call us to rebuild.
Praying for and with open eyes
- Let’s ask God to help us see the needs that surround us so that our hearts are touched. May we be like Nehemiah, who having received the bad report, sat down and wept.
- Let’s ask God to help us to see beyond the surface of things, the masking film of everyday routine that hides the awesome majesty of God. Let’s be like Paul and ask God to open our eyes to see the reality of his power and his love.
- Let’s ask God to help us to grasp that that he has given us a means to be agents of transformative change through prayer. Then we will persevere in holding up our hands like Moses; then we will like Jesus turn first to prayer, and, like him, rest secure in the power of prayer to overcome.