CAN PRAYERS BE WASTED?

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.

© God’s Breath Publications

 

Can prayer be wasted?

 

It’s a rather interesting question when you consider it.

 

Let me share a true story from the civil war and make some analogies for you.

 

The Union army had battered the confederate lines at Petersburg for months. No matter what shells, bullets and men were thrown at the fortifications the South had constructed; they would not budge or break. That’s when Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants developed a plan. He had been a mining engineer before the war, and many of his men in his unit had been coal miners. They came up with the idea of constructing a 500-foot tunnel underground that would put them right beneath the confederate lines. They planned to place at the end of this tunnel 8,000 pounds of gunpowder which when detonated, would blow a hole in the confederate barricades and trenches. This would, they hope, allow the advance of their army through the breach and a defeat for the confederates.

 

On July 30th, at 4:44am they exploded the huge charge. First there came a deep shock and tremor of the earth and a jar like an earthquake, then a monstrous tongue of flame shot fully 200 feet into the air, then a great spout or fountain of red earth rose to a great height, mingled with men and guns, timbers and planks, and every kind of debris, all ascending, spreading, whirling, scattering and falling with a great concussion to the earth. It had worked. The Confederate line was breached and the Union army advanced.

 

The problem was some last minute decisions had been made about which regiment should advance first and they were not properly briefed as to how to attack. In their disarray and confusion the union army advanced into the crater left by the explosion. Once in the crater, they had much difficulty climbing up the other side. This delay allowed the confederates time to regroup and assemble at the edge of the crater and practically exterminate the entire advancing force. General U.S. Grant commander of the Union army stated that it was the “saddest affair I have ever witnessed in the war.” A weary infantryman wrote in his diary that day, “a big slaughter and nothing gained.”

 

I wonder how much this particular battle is a description of our own Christian life, of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ lives, of our local church’s life, of Christ’s church as a whole?

 

How often do we fervently pray for defeat of the enemy only to frustrate our prayers by failing to seek wise counsel, common sense and direction from our Lord?

 

How often do we pray to avoid evil and yet seem to walk right into its jaws of death unaware of the slaughter that we are going to?

 

How often do we pray to flee from sin, and then fall right back into it again?

 

I would suggest that no prayers are wasted, but we must seek to practice not only what we preach, but also what we pray.

 

If we pray for deliverance, let us expect to be delivered.

 

If we pray to avoid temptation and sin, let us not walk into it with a willing heart.

 

If we pray for wisdom, let us seek wise counsel to obtain it.

 

If we pray to have the mind of Christ, let us be filled with His word.

 

If we pray to grow in our spiritual maturity, let us seek God’s will in our life.

 

If we pray to be comforted, let us fellowship with others of the faith.

 

If we pray for guidance, let us listen for the Holy Spirit.

 

Let us not be like the Union army, confident in our prayers and ignorant in our actions.

 

Matthew 26:41

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”