It happened again, just this week. A situation arose in which our family desperately needed prayer. As we began our own prayers, we invited others to join us in prayer as well. It is a familiar scene. I would guess that this scenario has played out in many other homes. As I was asking others to pray though, I was reminded of a question I was asked not long ago: is there more power in our prayers when there are more people praying? I have to admit, I did not have an immediate answer to this question. On the one hand, it is very natural for us to default towards the idea that more is always better—basically, if one prayer is powerful, two must be twice as powerful. On the other hand, I cannot believe that God could be manipulated simply because of a large number of people start praying—there isn’t magic in numbers. Then, of course, more questions are raised: If there was more power in numbers, what number would be the most powerful? Also, if having many people praying was so much more powerful, why aren’t those prayers always answered how we think they will be? As I searched for answers to these questions, I learned some things that may help. First, praying in groups is not a bad thing—it’s even encouraged—but it does not guarantee more power in your prayers. We have plenty of evidence in the New Testament church of Acts that the people gathered in groups to pray. The Apostles were gathered together for prayer right before the Holy Spirit came upon them on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:14). Also, when Peter was rescued by God from prison, he went to a house where many were gathered together and praying (Acts 12:12). Paul even encourages the people of Corinth to help him in prayer, “then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many” (2 Corinthians 1:11). However, Jesus warned us not to pray like the pagans, who hope to be heard because of many words (Matthew 6:7; see also Isaiah 1:15). Consider the showdown on Mt Carmel in 1 Kings 18: it describes the many prayers of all the priests of Baal, and reveals them to be powerless. Granted, it could be argued that they weren’t praying to God anyway. Yet, it appears that they held to the belief that their many prayers should have been more effective than the one prayer of Elijah. Another thing I found was that the Bible places more emphasis on the individuals’ relationship with God, rather than the size of the prayer team. James tells us that “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). Proverbs 15:29 says, “the Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayers of the righteous.” (1 Peter 3:12 says something similar.) At first glance, this may look like extreme bias, as if God is playing favorites. Yet, if our sins separate us from God, how can He hear our prayers (Isaiah 59:1, 2)? Just to clarify: a righteous person is not the one who simply does more good things than bad things, but is the one who has repaired the broken relationship with God by accepting the sacrifice of Christ and receiving His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:12). This is why God promises in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin and will heal their land.” This is a promise to His people; those who have a relationship with Him and follow Him. It will be those who humble themselves, seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways, that will be heard when they pray (this also explains the power of the “sinner’s prayer,” when a person realizes their need for God and prays for forgiveness and salvation). If this is the case, why would we need to pray in groups? Why gather together to pray if the prayer of one righteous person is effective and powerful? I think this questions rises because we forget the purpose of prayer. I wrote a blog specifically on this topic, so I will not go into a lot of detail, but in brief: prayer is not a wish-list, or an information network, it is communication with our God. When we pray, it is not to inform God about our wants and needs, or to demand we get what we ask for, it is to align ourselves with His will and give Him control over our situation. You see, prayer is the way we vocalize our dependence on God and when we pray as a group, we become united in that dependence. I have found that praying with other people can create a powerful bond between me and them. So, is there more power in the prayers of many? Not exactly. The amount of people praying does not make the prayers more convincing to God. Having prayer vigils all over the world can be a wonderful thing to unite the people of God, but those prayers will not have added power simply because many are saying them. The Bible is clear, it is the prayers of the ones who will humble themselves, seek to know God, turn from their wicked ways, and fully depend on Him, that are powerful. Do you want a more powerful prayer life? Follow God’s counsel in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Strengthen your relationship with God. The power is in the relationship, not the numbers. Yet, imagine the transformational power that would fill the prayer lives of a righteous group of God’s people, humbly united, and fully depending on Him?

I will start by suggesting that saying a prayer is already a good start! Too many people are afraid of doing it wrong so they don’t do it at all. Or sometimes, after hearing someone else pray, they may feel that their own prayer is now insufficient and will refuse to pray afterwards. The sad thing is that whenever we feel that our prayers are inadequate too often we’ll stop praying altogether.

If there were a right way or wrong way to pray, I can assure you that you will not discover which is which by watching other people. Our perspective is always faulty. Just think about Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector praying in the Temple (Luke 18:10–14). According to the culture of the time, the proper way to pray was to stand with your hands raised to heaven (it may not have been the only proper way to pray, but it was definitely viewed as acceptable). In addition, since the Pharisees were the models of righteous living, however they prayed would have been considered the correct way. Yet Jesus said that the Pharisee did not go home justified. Or in other words, his prayers were not accepted. It wasn’t the posture or position, but the attitude that made the difference.

God desires for us to call on His name. So it is strange to think that there might be prayers He does not approve of. It is easy for us to quickly respond, “No! Every prayer is a good prayer.” Yet, if we really believed this, then why would we fear that our prayers might not be good enough.

If there is a wrong way to pray, the Bible would tell us. And, actually, there is a place where Jesus talks about how not to pray. Yes, you read that right. Jesus tells us, if you will, how we can do it wrong. Of all the places in the Bible that talk about prayer, this is the only place I’ve found that directly mentions incorrect prayers (other than the parable I mentioned above). This discussion is found as part of the sermon on the mount in Matthew 6.

In this part of His teaching, Jesus presents to us two “do nots.” The first one (Matthew 6:5, 6) says that we should not pray so that men can see us. In other words, the purpose of prayer is not to impress other people. So, if the whole reason you pray, or the way you pray, is so that others might view you as being more holy, then you are praying wrong.

Instead, we are counseled to pray in a way, or a place, that helps us focus on God and God alone. Prayer is about communication with Him; it has nothing to do with how man views our prayer. The problem we have with this concept is that we are not able to tell if another person’s prayers are done right or wrong. This is because it deals with motives rather than specific postures or words, and like it or not, we cannot know another person’s motives. You can only know your own motives. So, whether or not you know all the words to say—or whether you are sitting, kneeling, or standing—what really matters, according to Jesus, is if the purpose of your prayers is to communicate to God or to impress men.

The second “do not” (Matthew 6:7, 8), says that we are not to babble, or as the English Standard Version translates it, “heap up empty phrases.” Basically, Jesus is saying that we shouldn’t pray meaningless words and do not need to use many words in an attempt to convince God. He knows what we need before we even pray! A great example of this is the confrontation on Mt Carmel between Elijah and the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:20–39). In this story, the priests of Baal beg their “gods” for hours on end, pleading to them to hear their prayers. This was typical of the heathens/ pagans. But when it was Elijah’s turn, he said a simple prayer and God answered.

There are two ideas here. First, God doesn’t ask us, or even want us, to beg Him. He wants us to ask, yes, but beg, no. He’s not stubbornly holding out good things from us until we can convince Him that we should have it. He desires to give us good things and is waiting for us to ask. There is a passage in Scripture that encourages us to be persistent (Luke 18:1–8: the parable of the widow and the judge), but persistence is not about begging, it is about not giving up.

The second idea is that empty words are simply that: empty. God doesn’t want just words, He wants our heart’s desire. Memorized prayers (even the Lord’s prayer) do not impress God anymore than memorizing a conversation (and repeating it over and over) would impress a friend or loved one. God wants us to pour out our hearts in prayer to Him, not our knowledge.

If you read further in Matthew 6, you will find the example prayer Jesus gave (verses 9–13). Again, Jesus just finished saying, “don’t use empty phrases,” so this prayer was not given to us so we would memorize it and spew out anytime we want to add a little “holiness” to our other prayers. Instead, Jesus is explaining how a simple prayer would sound. It is the opposite of the babbling of the pagans. Our prayers should be simple. This does not mean short, necessarily—Jesus spent all night in prayer sometimes—it means to the point. His example prayer contains different parts: glorifying God, desiring God’s will be done in your life, presenting personal requests, confession and asking for forgiveness, and requesting spiritual protection and guidance. Each is simple and to the point.

Again, it is not about our words, it is about our motives. It always is. God cares more about why we do things than the things we do themselves. We should stop worrying about whether or not our words are good enough—which, by the way, will never will be. But we have a promise in that category: “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). What an incredible promise!

So, don’t worry about your words, just pour out your heart. Make prayer about you and God. Make it simple and to the point. Don’t care what others may think of your prayers—every heartfelt prayer is beautiful to God—just pray!

I’ve found myself thinking each of those ways at times. Yet, from what I read in the Bible, God is not too busy, nor is He so uninterested, that He refuses to listen to the smaller issues of our lives. Of course, God is not a vending machine either that we call on Him only when we are needy. Furthermore, God isn’t in need of a play-by-play report of our day—He knows what’s going on in our lives better that we do!

So I want to devote the next few blogs on prayer—why we do it, how we do it, what we should pray for, and things like that.

We will start with the most important of those questions: why do we pray? If we don’t understand why we pray, we most likely won’t pray and if we do pray without understanding why, we’ll approach prayer incorrectly (like the above situations).

I think the greatest reason for us to pray is because God listens to us when we do. Deuteronomy 4:7 says that God draws near to us when we pray. Like a parent kneeling down to better hear their child, God leans in to hear us better. God is so interested in what we have to say to Him that He comes down to our level to hear us! How amazing is that? We don’t have to beg or plead or even bribe our God to listen to our prayers, He actually wants to hear them already! God says “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you” (Jeremiah 29:12). In the very next verse, God also says that if we will seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him. He’s not trying to hide from us, but we also have to want to find Him. So we pray!

In addition, God hears our prayers regardless of where we are in life. We are told in Psalm 102:17 that God listens to the prayer of the destitute—those who have nothing and bring nothing to the table—and “does not despise their prayer.” I love that part. God does not groan when He looks down at the prayer caller ID and sees our name. God does not get frustrated when we call on His name frequently (actually He delights in that!). Our God is a God who loves to talk to His children. Our lack of resources, or abundance or troubles, do not make Him less likely to listen. So we pray!

If being willing to listen to us wasn’t already reason enough to talk to God in prayer, the Bible also says that God desires to answer our prayers and give us what we ask for (Luke 11:13). Like parents giving good gifts to their children, God desires to give us good things. This does not mean that every request is automatically granted—God’s not a genie in a bottle—but that God will not withhold from us those things we ask for that are good for us. John puts it this way: we can have confidence knowing that God hears and answers our prayers that are asked according to His will (1 John 5:14, 15). Of course, when we pray for something we also need to trust God. Prayer mingled with faith makes nothing impossible (Mark 11:22–24). Granted, God sometimes allows us to have things we pray for that are not good for us (like Israel’s request for a king), much like a parent will allow their children to “learn the hard way.” God also answers with “wait.” Sometimes God desires to give us what we ask for, and what we ask for is according to His will, but the timing is not right. So we have faith, pray, and wait—accepting whatever answer He gives.

Of course, one of my favorite passages of scripture on prayer which pulls this all together, is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” What an amazing promise! Prayer is meant to change us. It is meant to draw us closer to God. If we pray, He will hear. If we seek Him, He will forgive. If we repent, He will heal us.

This is what we can expect from prayer. This is why we pray. It is not meant to be simply a request line or an information network; it is our way to communicate with our God—the One who desires to listen to us and answer our prayers. Through prayer we can get to know our God more. And this is what we will learn about Him: He always has time to hear us, He’s always willing to listen, and He’s ready and willing to answer our prayers and bless us. Why would we not pray?