Prayer Requests

If you happen to go to a prayer meeting at your local church, chances are it will be one of two things. Either it will be a mini version of a Sunday morning service and not a real prayer meeting at all, or it will involve 50 minutes of church sanctioned gossip followed by 10 minutes of hurried prayer. The prayer being little more than a condensed recitation of the previously mentioned prayer requests filled with "G-d be withs" and "G-d helps".

Reading through the new testament, especially the letters gives a certain perspective on prayer that differs from this standard litany. Paul doesn't say he is praying for Matilda's bad knee, or Bob's sister's coworker's cousin's drinking problem. From what I see about half of his prayers are glorifying G-d and the other half are praying that the churches would be filled with the various fruits of the Spirit.

I've been thinking about this and I don't think that it is an issue of him not caring about the smaller mundane things, but more the fact that he was writing a letter that was limited in length and so he focused on what was important.

This makes me wonder about the content of the aforementioned prayer meetings. I don't think we should ignore all the prayer requests for aches and pains. I mean, Jesus spent a lot of His time healing those things. But when all we pray about is "give me this or that thing" and not seeking a deeper walk with G-d through glorifying Him or seeking greater intimacy I think we are doing it wrong.

Focus on Him, and I bet the odds and ends will work themselves out a lot more than we expect.