I recently heard a television preacher on prayer. The topic was familiar, the text was from James, Chapter 5: "The prayer of the righteous has great power in its effects. Elijah prayed that it might not rain, and for three years and six months, it did not rain."
Well, I'll tell you something, all winter I've been praying for snow, and it finally came. The right answer on the wrong day; one on which I had scheduled a business meeting I could not avoid, making escape to the cross country ski trails impossible. Elijah to the contrary, do our prayers really have power over the weather, or the state of the economy, or the health of a child? Is there really any power in a prayer?
The preacher I was listening to had absolutely no doubt about it. He was filled with enthusiasm about the power of prayer. He believed that people should pray more and more often, that we shouldn't be afraid to pray for immediate, material rewards. Since God is the provider of every good thing, we shouldn't be afraid to ask for anything, no matter how small or large. For example, if your child is about to take entrance exams to college, you should pray that the child scores well on the SAT's, for the Lord will provide. If you are gunning to become CEO of your company, pray, and the Lord will provide. And if you're out in your car, driving around the streets of the city, and you can't find a parking place, then pray, and the Lord will provide.
These are powerful promises. Yet whenever I hear such claims for the power of prayer I also hear a little voice somewhere in the back of my mind which seems to say, "Wait just a minute, something strange is going on here." And the more I wonder about it, the more troubling that sermon becomes. Should we pray for immediate, material rewards -- good grades, a raise in s