Praying the Tough Prayer

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Since we are winding down our “FaithWorks” sermon series on the book of James, tomorrow will be the last day of our daily devotions for a while. As we evaluate this tool, please leave a comment below with your name so that we can discern who has been reading the blog postings and plan for the future. Thanks!

“Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.” –James 5:17-18

Earlier in this passage, James mentions praying the ‘prayer of faith.’ This has often been abused to say that whether our prayers are answered or not are dependent upon the amount or quality of our faith. This, amongst other things, causes people to really twist their interpretations of events in order to protect their dignity. It also makes a lot of people feel bad because they didn’t get what they asked for.

Here we see that this is not at all the case. Unless Elijah was some kind of traitor, he would not have wanted to pray the prayer that he prayed. This was something that he did because he was able to discern the will of God for Israel. When he as a prophet made this decision, it was not popular. But it was for the best of God’s people. You must understand that a modern day equivalent would be for Christians in America to pray for the stock market to collapse so that people here would start seeking God again. It would not be a popular prayer at all.

I’m not sure how to instruct you to pray the tough prayer for our country today. But I can tell you that there are a lot of tough ‘prayers of faith’ for you to pray for yourself. Maybe a prayer for God to reveal any idols that you might have in your life would be tough. Or how about asking God to remove any distractions that you have in your life that keep you from him? I know a girl I went to college with prayed that prayer. She was an avid fan of music. The next day she went out to her car to find that her new car stereo and all of her music had been stolen. Now I know you can over interpret that one, but she got the point. Her music had been distracting her from God. She prayed, and she will tell you that he got rid of it. It wound up becoming a period of great spiritual growth in her life.

Are you willing to pray the tough prayer? It may not be easy. It may even cost you now. However, in the long run it will be worth it.