Our Prayers Switch on God's Power

By Ben Dickerson

One of the Old Testament prophets makes a very interesting statement. In Ezekiel 22, the Lord says through Ezekiel, “I looked for someone to build up the wall and stand in the gap so I didn't have to destroy the land.”  The fact is that God desperately wanted to save His people from destruction, but was unable to do so without someone who would stand before Him in prayer, interceding for the people.  

Did you ever wonder why God considers our praying so important? If He has all power (and He does!), and if He loves us and knows what is best for us (and He does!), and if He is Lord of all (and He is!), why does He depend on our prayers in order to accomplish what He wants to do anyway?  Without going into a long, biblical study of the basis for this, let's just realize that God loves us so much and yearns so strongly for a relationship with us that He delegated His sovereignty over our world to us. He did that so that the things that happen to bring about His will in our world would only occur through a cooperative partnership between Him and us, His people.

God has chosen not to act independently of mankind. When God wants to do a great work in our world, He works in the hearts and minds of His people to bring them to the point of faith-filled praying, speaking, and acting in union with His power to accomplish the work He wants to do. We see God working through people in that way in Joseph, Moses, Elijah, Nehemiah, and on and on, clear up to the supreme example when He, Himself became a man to accomplish His greatest work on our behalf. Until people pray in faith, God's power is held in check, even when He wants to act!  One of the best analogies involves electricity. A friend, who worked at our city's power plant, gave this illustration of the principle here. When they want to start up one of the huge motors that take massive amounts of power to run, they flip a small switch which carries only a very little DC current. That tiny amount of DC current flows through a coil, closing a relay switch, which in turn allows 10s of thousands of volts to flow--to a 30 megawatt motor, for example.  Now, what turns that motor on?  Is it the thousands of volts that run through the main line to the motor, or the tiny current that flows through the switch and closes the breaker so that massive power comes into play?  Obviously, neither one by itself operates that motor. Both sources of power are required.

So it is, I believe, with God's power. It is not the power of our prayers that move mountains, heal disease, bring reconciliation between people,  or anything else we pray for. It's the power of God. But our prayers are the tiny amounts of current that it takes to close the breaker switches through which God's power flows into those situations.  The tiny spiritual current that flows from within us as we pray in faith, activates the Spirit of God, who closes the closes the circuit and allows the infinite power of God to flow from the throne of heaven into the midst of our world.  However, here's where we come to the principle that I can't document chapter and verse from Scripture, but can only conclude from reports of answered prayer in Scripture. We have to release from within ourselves enough spiritual current, if you will, to build up a certain level of spiritual energy, before that breaker switch is triggered, that allows the power of God to flow. Let's consider some biblical examples.

In 1 Kings 17, Elijah restores life to the only son of a widow with whom he was staying. Verses 21-22 say:  And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the Lord, "Lord my God, please let this child's life return to him." The Lord heard Elijah's prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he came back to life!  Why did Elijah have to do the same thing three times before God answered?  In the very next chapter, the Lord says He's going to end a 3 year drought by sending rain. It is clear, this was the will of God, but to make a very long story short (you can read the whole thing in 1 Kings 18) God did not send the rain until Elijah had cleansed the land of pagan priests and then prayed seven times for rain. Why did Elijah need to repeat his prayer over and over, doesn't God hear the first time?  There are other examples of the need for repetition to unleash the power of God--the walls of Jericho, for example. Why did Jesus pray the same prayer three times in the Garden of Gethsemane? In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable to teach His disciples to "persevere in prayer."  A nagging child in a grocery store may eventually get what he wants by wearing Mom down, but "persevering in prayer" is totally different.  It doesn't manipulate God--it sets His power free. Because of our praying, God can work in us and in our world in ways that, because of limitations He put upon Himself, He could not work otherwise. Our prayers don't get God to do what we want Him to do, they allow Him to do what He wants to do for us. What an incredibly good reason to pray much more than we do!