His Kingdom or Our Comfort?
by Jonathan Graf
Longtime Presbyterian minister Dr. Wilbur Chapman (early 1900s) was 26 when called to be pastor of Wanamakers Church in Philadelphia. His first Sunday, an old gentleman came up to him and said, “You’re much too young to be the pastor of such a fine church as this.” Chapman thought the guy was a kook. The older gentleman went on to tell him that he and another gentleman had decided to pray for him—that the Holy Spirit’s power would fall on him each time he stepped into the pulpit.
Chapman reported that those 2 men soon turned into 10, then 20, then 50, and finally more than 200 men who gathered each Sunday morning before services to pray for the Holy Spirit’s enablement. Over the next three years, the church saw 1,100 people come into the kingdom—more than 600 of them were men.
Somewhere along the line, churches have lost sight of what they should be praying for. Today, most church prayer requests and meetings are almost exclusively for needs within the body. We pray that each person’s life would get back to normal. Seldom do we cry out for the fullness of Jesus Christ to come upon a body, for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit onto a church, that lives would glorify God and people would be drawn to Christ as members walk through difficult times, that our youth would desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
No, we stay focused on the “little answerables” that have upset people’s ease in life. Little thought is ever given to, “God, what do You want to do in this situation in Bill’s life?” Even less time is spent waiting for an answer from God. No, our prayers are, “God, get them out of this!”
I’m struck by the prayers of Paul. Even though he had many people with life-and-death needs under his care, Paul—at least in the prayers we see in Scripture—never prayed for a logical answer to a specific need. (His own request that his thorn in the flesh be removed is the closest he came; but God said no, so he stopped asking.) Instead, Paul focused on spiritual fruit and spiritual growth issues.
For the Roman believers, who were undoubtedly suffering intense persecution, Paul prayed, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13 NIV). Not “Get them out of this!” Paul knew that the Holy Spirit would draw people to Christ if they saw believers go through tough times with a sense of hope, joy, and peace.
How do you pray when faced with a difficult situation in your life or in the life of another? Do you simply default to a “get them out of this” mode of prayer? Or do you recognize that God wants to do something in and through their difficult situation?
Maybe it’s spiritual growth. Maybe glory to His Son. Maybe growing the kingdom. Maybe we and our churches would see more kingdom growth if we changed the way we pray.
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Jonathan Graf is president of the Church Prayer Leaders Network and the publisher of Prayer Connect magazine.