Our proverb this morning contains some of the most wonderful words that could ever come to our ears. It highlights for us just how infatuated God is with his people. We often think of God as one who is lofty and quite removed. This is why passages like this are needed from time to time. A passage like this reminds us that God is near to us and is bent towards us. He inclines to us at every moment and really, is preoccupied with us.
This is something that tears me up. I need to work. I need to concentrate. But I also love my kids. And I usually have to tell them that they need to scram. And that’s hard to do because you feel like the most unloving person.
But a passage like this reminds us that our heavenly father supersedes earthly fathers in this regard. This passage reminds us that we never are barging in on God and disturbing Him. God is glorious in that he has an extra-ordinary preoccupation with us. He hears our prayer.
And this passage this morning should be something that induces us to be more active in prayer. It doesn’t matter what level we’re at now—whether we are good at it or not, this verse is an encouragement to be more adamantly committed to prayer.
But there are three things I want us to understand about prayer. This morning I want us to consider the privilege, the prospects, and the power of prayer. When we understand each of these points I think it will boost our commitment to pray.
We already are committed to prayer. If you are a Christian, you are a person who prays. Some are better than others, but all who are Christians pray. That’s just part of belief and faith in Christ. But I think we’ll be more apt to pray when we understand the privilege of prayer.
I. The privilege of prayer
It is important to point out the privilege we have in prayer. Prayer is a privilege. That’s because not everyone who prays is heard. This may come as a shock to some, but God doesn’t listen to everyone who prays. There are some people to whom he turns a deaf ear.
The first thing we can see in this verse is that a discrimination is made between the righteous and the wicked. The text expressly says that God hears the prayer of the righteous. But when it comes to the wicked—those who live in unruly rebellion, it says that God is far from them.
This is of course a figurative way of speaking. We know that God cannot be far from them in terms of his essence. Scripture tells us that God is everywhere present and that there is no escaping his presence. When it says that God is far from them it is speaking metaphorically. It’s saying that the Lord is inaccessible to them. His love and his favor are “out of reach” so to speak. He is far in that he cannot hear them.
Sometimes we talk about someone being distant. They may be right there next to you—they may be in the very same room, but mentally they are somewhere else. You might start talking to them, but they are not really paying attention to what you say because they are thinking about something else.
That’s the kind of thing that is being described here. God may be present right there when the unbeliever talks, but he isn’t listening. Sure the Lord hears what the unbeliever says, but the words fall on deaf ears. The Lord completely ignores it.
I said that this can come as a shock to some. It was not too long ago that this very thing caused a rather big stir in the evangelical world. In 1980 the then sitting president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Bailey Smith, stated that the Lord does not hear the prayer of a Jew. He was speaking about this very idea. It was not a racial statement. It was a moral and religious statement. He expressed that a practicing Jew would not be heard because his prayer was not offered in Jesus’ name.
Dr. Smith ended up taking quite a bit of heat for that statement, both from Jews and a wide part of the population of the SBC.
Jerry Falwell, who was a prominent evangelical leader at this time—a man who was the head of what has been known as the Moral Majority, initially came out in support of Dr. Smith. He, however, ended up changing his position and saying that God does hear the prayers of Jews. He is quoted to have said that God is not a respecter of persons in this regard.[1]
But Falwell demonstrated that he doesn’t understand the distinctive nature of Christian prayer. Dr. Smith is right. When we pray, even if we do not use the words specifically, we pray in the name of Jesus. To pray in Jesus’s name is to, among other things, acknowledge that we are in submission to Christ and have access to God solely through His mediation.
This is why we can pray and this is why God will not listen to anyone who does not pray in the name of Christ. Because there is only one means of access.
Listen to these words from GI Williamson. Williamson asks the question, “How is Christian prayer distinguished from all other kinds of prayer?” He answers by saying this:
Christian prayer is distinguished from all other kinds of prayer in that it is addressed to the true God, who is revealed in the Bible, through the God-man Jesus Christ as Mediator. All non-Christian prayer either is addressed to a non-existent god or attempts to approach the true God directly, without out a mediator, or through some other mediator than Jesus Christ.
What we learn in this passage is that God if you want your prayer to be heard, you have to be in submission to God. And submission to God means coming to Him through the means that He has appointed. And that is through Jesus Christ.
So if you are not acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Lord and mediator between God and man, you might as well keep your prayers to yourself. And that doesn’t mean just attaching the words, “In Jesus name” to the end of your prayer. You need to be in submission to Christ.
But for you and I who are in Christ, we can and should pray. We have this privilege and so we should use it as frequently as possible. We have the great honor of prayer—we have been granted this access, so we should give ourselves to prayer as much as is possible.
But we should be encouraged to pray, not just because of the privilege, but because of the prospects.
II. The prospects of prayer
The passage tells us that God hears our prayers. A lot of people wonder, “Does God hear my prayer?” And some of the people that ask this question are God fearing people. And the answer that they need is right here. God doesn’t just hear some of your prayers or even most of your payers. When a true Christian prays, he doesn’t just have a 95% reception rate.
God hears every utterance. No matter how faint or weakened it may be, God hears. Never is his ear deafened or turned away. He listens intently to our cries and is constantly mindful of every one of our supplications.
Let’s just take a second and think about the prospects we have in prayer. I want you to really consider how tuned in God is to us. Think about this:
He hears us even if our prayers are inaudible.
The people of God can be physically drained due to exhaustion, sickness, or disease. In this life we experience ills and sorrows and all kinds of afflictions—all of which serve to diminish our ability to speak, let alone pray.
Beyond that, there are times when it is not conducive to pray out loud. You may remember that Nehemiah was in just such a situation. He was the cup-bearer to the king and the king had asked him one day why his face was so drab. We are told that Nehemiah prayed before he answered. But in all likelihood, he didn’t give a verbal expression to that prayer. It was most likely uttered only in thought. But did that prayer go unnoticed? Absolutely not. God heard.
No matter how badly our physic may be reduced, the smallest utterance will still come to the attention of God. A prayer may only be whispered in the heart—and though it be beyond all the receptacles of men to pick up, God still hears it. The inward, inaudible prayer is to God just as loud as the roar of crazed fans of a packed out professional sports stadium.
But God not only hears our inaudible prayers, he hears our inarticulate prayers.
God hears us even when our prayers are inarticulate
We sometimes our prayers can lack volume, but there are other times when our prayers lack a lot of verbiage. Sometimes they are not very eloquent.
This is one of the things that I experience as a minister. Everyone wants you to pray. I recognize that it is part and parcel with the office. But there are other times when it is superstitious. They feel that my prayers as a minister are “better”—either because I am seminary trained or because I can use all kinds of flowery language.
We may feel that God hears only a fluent prayer that “has it all together.” Somehow we think that this kind of prayer is more acceptable to God and more persuasive. But this is not so. God hears us, no matter how the awkward the limping of our tongues may be. Sometimes the only prayer we can offer is a clumsy one. But this is no matter. The reverence of the heart always is esteemed more than the chatter of the teeth.
A good example of this is found in Peter. Peter is known for the shortest prayer ever uttered. You remember that when he saw Jesus walking on the water, he asked the Lord to allow him to come and do the same. But as the wind churned up the waters, he began to sink. In that instance, cried out “Lord save!” It wasn’t anything long or drawn out. It wasn’t overly eloquent or original. But it was enough. God heard and the Lord was moved to help.
There once was a woman who had been bitten by a snake. The poisonous venom threw her into a terrible delirium. Despite not being able to have a clear train of thought, she prayed. The only words she could put together though, was the name of the Savior. For hours on end she simply repeated the name “Jesus.” It was not a vain repetition or a magical mantra to her—for she meant it sincerely. Each utterance was a beckoning—a calling out to the Lord. Though she could not articulate a formal, drawn out prayer, she was able to call out to God. And her prayers were answered. The doctors expected that she would die, since they could not contain the poison or answer with an antidote in a timely fashion. But she eventually recovered and enjoyed a long life.
We must not think that prayers must be scholarly or profound. They need only be simple and sincere.
But we may even go beyond this. The prayers that the Lord hears may even be incoherent.
God hears us even when our prayers are incoherent
In Romans 8 we read about how the Spirit of God helps us in our weakness. Paul says sometimes we do not know what we ought to pray for. But he says the Spirit intercedes for us. It is not that the Holy Spirit is praying for us, but the Spirit is there in a intense way to assist us in our prayers. That even when words escape us and all we have is groaning’s that flow from an emotion filled heart, such are prayers that the Lord hears.
Let me give you an example that was given to me years ago. Some of you will remember Max Forsythe. Pastor Forsythe was a minister in an old mainline Presbyterian church. The church was frought with all kinds of errors and the conservatives within the denomination were being systematically routed at every turn. And this grieved Rev. Forsythe greatly. The time came where the liberal shift of the church had become so great that he believed that it was time to go. Keep in mind that this was “his church.” He had grown up in it and ministered in it for a long time. It pained him intensely to see it straying from the Lord and to be forced now to leave it was hard thing with which to deal. It was a very emotional night for him. And he told me that night he just wept. He tried to pray, but he just couldn’t. He was too overcome. All he could do is groan.
Our prospects in prayer are more than good. We are given the guarantee that God will hear us. It doesn’t matter. Our prayers can be inaudible, inarticulate, or completely incoherent. God will still hear us. But let’s add one more thing.
God hears us no matter how inaccurate our prayers may be
Sometimes our prayers are sinful. James says we have not because we ask not. We do not receive because we do not ask for the right things. Sometimes we are selfish and misguided in prayer and we ask for the wrong kinds of things. To be sure, God hears these prayers too. And he answers them too. Thankfully, the answer is always no.
This is to be rejoiced in, just as much as the prayers that God hears and answers. This is just another example of how God is gracious. The Lord withholds these things from us because He knows that they are not good for us. We would somehow endanger ourselves and bring disaster upon ourselves.
But what does all this show? It shows us that God’s ear is never deafened to us. More than that, it shows us that he doesn’t just listen, but he listens intently. And that should give us every encouragement to pray.
But I want us to note just one more thing. We’ve seen the privilege and the prospects of prayer. But let’s end by noting the power of prayer.
III. The power that we exert
If God hears our prayer, what does that mean? It means he answers our prayer.
God is not a cosmic psychiatrist who has you come and sit on a couch and merely talk or pour out your problems. God isn’t passive when it comes to prayer. When you pray he hears, and when he hears, he answers.
In Scripture, whenever God is said to hear his people crying out to him, God is on the verge of rendering help. He is not presented as merely listening, but acting on their behalf.
Therein lies the power of prayer. This verse is reminding us that the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective.
We will often not see the fruit of prayer. God often doesn’t allow us to see the direct answer to our prayers. What’s more, he often takes a different road than we expect. His modus operandi is usually invisible and mysterious. He often works over long periods of time and does not answer our prayers all at once. But he answers them. The answer is guaranteed.
We frequently can become discouraged and think that our prayers are without effect, and this is what Satan wants. Satan wants us to live by sight and not by faith. But this is why we are exhorted to pray and not doubt. The promise is here before us: the Lord hears the prayer of the righteous.
What does Jesus say? In John 14 he says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do…If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” (Jn 14:13-14) He repeats it twice, as if to say, “Go ahead, try me.”
Of course, this reminds us that the prayers we lift are to be "righteous" prayers. What does it mean to pray in Jesus name? We've seen already that it means that we are praying through Christ and demonstrating a spirit of submission. Our prayers then, must be in submission to Him. In other words, our prayers must be Scriptural.
This is why the Lord's prayer is so helpful. When Jesus gave the Lord's Prayer he was expressing the kinds of things He wants us. He was essentially saying, "These are the kinds of prayers that I will answer." When you pray "hallowed be your name," that's the kind of thing Jesus loves. God has already pledged that he will answer that prayer.
When you pray for your daily bread, or for a job that will help to ensure your daily provision, then that is a prayer that moves God to act. He begins to coordinate all the affairs of the earth in order to answer that petition.
This is, of course, not just limited to the Lord's Prayer. Any prayer that we make in accordance with the revealed with of God will be answered. He hears it. He is moved by it. And he acts so as to answer it.
Why is it that Elijah was able to shut the heavens and keep the rain at bay? It was because he read in the book of Deut. that God will cause the rain to cease when his people disobeyed. Elijah was a man just like us. But James says he prayed. He prayed that God would discipline His people. And because it was based in God's will, that prayer had power.
The same is true when he was on Mt Carmel. The Baal prophets screamed and shouted, but their prayers were not heard. God was far from them. But God heard the prayer of Elijah. When Elijah bowed and voiced his supplication, the Lord was ready to answer.
We might not bring fire down from heaven, but each of us can be just as determined to beseech the Lord. We have just as much power in prayer.
Conclusion:
Herein we have our greatest incentive to pray. Let us remember that our supplications do influence the course of history. And let us never then tire of bending God’s ever attentive ear.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501197.html
But a passage like this reminds us that our heavenly father supersedes earthly fathers in this regard. This passage reminds us that we never are barging in on God and disturbing Him. God is glorious in that he has an extra-ordinary preoccupation with us. He hears our prayer.
And this passage this morning should be something that induces us to be more active in prayer. It doesn’t matter what level we’re at now—whether we are good at it or not, this verse is an encouragement to be more adamantly committed to prayer.
But there are three things I want us to understand about prayer. This morning I want us to consider the privilege, the prospects, and the power of prayer. When we understand each of these points I think it will boost our commitment to pray.
We already are committed to prayer. If you are a Christian, you are a person who prays. Some are better than others, but all who are Christians pray. That’s just part of belief and faith in Christ. But I think we’ll be more apt to pray when we understand the privilege of prayer.
I. The privilege of prayer
It is important to point out the privilege we have in prayer. Prayer is a privilege. That’s because not everyone who prays is heard. This may come as a shock to some, but God doesn’t listen to everyone who prays. There are some people to whom he turns a deaf ear.
The first thing we can see in this verse is that a discrimination is made between the righteous and the wicked. The text expressly says that God hears the prayer of the righteous. But when it comes to the wicked—those who live in unruly rebellion, it says that God is far from them.
This is of course a figurative way of speaking. We know that God cannot be far from them in terms of his essence. Scripture tells us that God is everywhere present and that there is no escaping his presence. When it says that God is far from them it is speaking metaphorically. It’s saying that the Lord is inaccessible to them. His love and his favor are “out of reach” so to speak. He is far in that he cannot hear them.
Sometimes we talk about someone being distant. They may be right there next to you—they may be in the very same room, but mentally they are somewhere else. You might start talking to them, but they are not really paying attention to what you say because they are thinking about something else.
That’s the kind of thing that is being described here. God may be present right there when the unbeliever talks, but he isn’t listening. Sure the Lord hears what the unbeliever says, but the words fall on deaf ears. The Lord completely ignores it.
I said that this can come as a shock to some. It was not too long ago that this very thing caused a rather big stir in the evangelical world. In 1980 the then sitting president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Bailey Smith, stated that the Lord does not hear the prayer of a Jew. He was speaking about this very idea. It was not a racial statement. It was a moral and religious statement. He expressed that a practicing Jew would not be heard because his prayer was not offered in Jesus’ name.
Dr. Smith ended up taking quite a bit of heat for that statement, both from Jews and a wide part of the population of the SBC.
Jerry Falwell, who was a prominent evangelical leader at this time—a man who was the head of what has been known as the Moral Majority, initially came out in support of Dr. Smith. He, however, ended up changing his position and saying that God does hear the prayers of Jews. He is quoted to have said that God is not a respecter of persons in this regard.[1]
But Falwell demonstrated that he doesn’t understand the distinctive nature of Christian prayer. Dr. Smith is right. When we pray, even if we do not use the words specifically, we pray in the name of Jesus. To pray in Jesus’s name is to, among other things, acknowledge that we are in submission to Christ and have access to God solely through His mediation.
This is why we can pray and this is why God will not listen to anyone who does not pray in the name of Christ. Because there is only one means of access.
Listen to these words from GI Williamson. Williamson asks the question, “How is Christian prayer distinguished from all other kinds of prayer?” He answers by saying this:
Christian prayer is distinguished from all other kinds of prayer in that it is addressed to the true God, who is revealed in the Bible, through the God-man Jesus Christ as Mediator. All non-Christian prayer either is addressed to a non-existent god or attempts to approach the true God directly, without out a mediator, or through some other mediator than Jesus Christ.
What we learn in this passage is that God if you want your prayer to be heard, you have to be in submission to God. And submission to God means coming to Him through the means that He has appointed. And that is through Jesus Christ.
So if you are not acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Lord and mediator between God and man, you might as well keep your prayers to yourself. And that doesn’t mean just attaching the words, “In Jesus name” to the end of your prayer. You need to be in submission to Christ.
But for you and I who are in Christ, we can and should pray. We have this privilege and so we should use it as frequently as possible. We have the great honor of prayer—we have been granted this access, so we should give ourselves to prayer as much as is possible.
But we should be encouraged to pray, not just because of the privilege, but because of the prospects.
II. The prospects of prayer
The passage tells us that God hears our prayers. A lot of people wonder, “Does God hear my prayer?” And some of the people that ask this question are God fearing people. And the answer that they need is right here. God doesn’t just hear some of your prayers or even most of your payers. When a true Christian prays, he doesn’t just have a 95% reception rate.
God hears every utterance. No matter how faint or weakened it may be, God hears. Never is his ear deafened or turned away. He listens intently to our cries and is constantly mindful of every one of our supplications.
Let’s just take a second and think about the prospects we have in prayer. I want you to really consider how tuned in God is to us. Think about this:
He hears us even if our prayers are inaudible.
The people of God can be physically drained due to exhaustion, sickness, or disease. In this life we experience ills and sorrows and all kinds of afflictions—all of which serve to diminish our ability to speak, let alone pray.
Beyond that, there are times when it is not conducive to pray out loud. You may remember that Nehemiah was in just such a situation. He was the cup-bearer to the king and the king had asked him one day why his face was so drab. We are told that Nehemiah prayed before he answered. But in all likelihood, he didn’t give a verbal expression to that prayer. It was most likely uttered only in thought. But did that prayer go unnoticed? Absolutely not. God heard.
No matter how badly our physic may be reduced, the smallest utterance will still come to the attention of God. A prayer may only be whispered in the heart—and though it be beyond all the receptacles of men to pick up, God still hears it. The inward, inaudible prayer is to God just as loud as the roar of crazed fans of a packed out professional sports stadium.
But God not only hears our inaudible prayers, he hears our inarticulate prayers.
God hears us even when our prayers are inarticulate
We sometimes our prayers can lack volume, but there are other times when our prayers lack a lot of verbiage. Sometimes they are not very eloquent.
This is one of the things that I experience as a minister. Everyone wants you to pray. I recognize that it is part and parcel with the office. But there are other times when it is superstitious. They feel that my prayers as a minister are “better”—either because I am seminary trained or because I can use all kinds of flowery language.
We may feel that God hears only a fluent prayer that “has it all together.” Somehow we think that this kind of prayer is more acceptable to God and more persuasive. But this is not so. God hears us, no matter how the awkward the limping of our tongues may be. Sometimes the only prayer we can offer is a clumsy one. But this is no matter. The reverence of the heart always is esteemed more than the chatter of the teeth.
A good example of this is found in Peter. Peter is known for the shortest prayer ever uttered. You remember that when he saw Jesus walking on the water, he asked the Lord to allow him to come and do the same. But as the wind churned up the waters, he began to sink. In that instance, cried out “Lord save!” It wasn’t anything long or drawn out. It wasn’t overly eloquent or original. But it was enough. God heard and the Lord was moved to help.
There once was a woman who had been bitten by a snake. The poisonous venom threw her into a terrible delirium. Despite not being able to have a clear train of thought, she prayed. The only words she could put together though, was the name of the Savior. For hours on end she simply repeated the name “Jesus.” It was not a vain repetition or a magical mantra to her—for she meant it sincerely. Each utterance was a beckoning—a calling out to the Lord. Though she could not articulate a formal, drawn out prayer, she was able to call out to God. And her prayers were answered. The doctors expected that she would die, since they could not contain the poison or answer with an antidote in a timely fashion. But she eventually recovered and enjoyed a long life.
We must not think that prayers must be scholarly or profound. They need only be simple and sincere.
But we may even go beyond this. The prayers that the Lord hears may even be incoherent.
God hears us even when our prayers are incoherent
In Romans 8 we read about how the Spirit of God helps us in our weakness. Paul says sometimes we do not know what we ought to pray for. But he says the Spirit intercedes for us. It is not that the Holy Spirit is praying for us, but the Spirit is there in a intense way to assist us in our prayers. That even when words escape us and all we have is groaning’s that flow from an emotion filled heart, such are prayers that the Lord hears.
Let me give you an example that was given to me years ago. Some of you will remember Max Forsythe. Pastor Forsythe was a minister in an old mainline Presbyterian church. The church was frought with all kinds of errors and the conservatives within the denomination were being systematically routed at every turn. And this grieved Rev. Forsythe greatly. The time came where the liberal shift of the church had become so great that he believed that it was time to go. Keep in mind that this was “his church.” He had grown up in it and ministered in it for a long time. It pained him intensely to see it straying from the Lord and to be forced now to leave it was hard thing with which to deal. It was a very emotional night for him. And he told me that night he just wept. He tried to pray, but he just couldn’t. He was too overcome. All he could do is groan.
Our prospects in prayer are more than good. We are given the guarantee that God will hear us. It doesn’t matter. Our prayers can be inaudible, inarticulate, or completely incoherent. God will still hear us. But let’s add one more thing.
God hears us no matter how inaccurate our prayers may be
Sometimes our prayers are sinful. James says we have not because we ask not. We do not receive because we do not ask for the right things. Sometimes we are selfish and misguided in prayer and we ask for the wrong kinds of things. To be sure, God hears these prayers too. And he answers them too. Thankfully, the answer is always no.
This is to be rejoiced in, just as much as the prayers that God hears and answers. This is just another example of how God is gracious. The Lord withholds these things from us because He knows that they are not good for us. We would somehow endanger ourselves and bring disaster upon ourselves.
But what does all this show? It shows us that God’s ear is never deafened to us. More than that, it shows us that he doesn’t just listen, but he listens intently. And that should give us every encouragement to pray.
But I want us to note just one more thing. We’ve seen the privilege and the prospects of prayer. But let’s end by noting the power of prayer.
III. The power that we exert
If God hears our prayer, what does that mean? It means he answers our prayer.
God is not a cosmic psychiatrist who has you come and sit on a couch and merely talk or pour out your problems. God isn’t passive when it comes to prayer. When you pray he hears, and when he hears, he answers.
In Scripture, whenever God is said to hear his people crying out to him, God is on the verge of rendering help. He is not presented as merely listening, but acting on their behalf.
Therein lies the power of prayer. This verse is reminding us that the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective.
We will often not see the fruit of prayer. God often doesn’t allow us to see the direct answer to our prayers. What’s more, he often takes a different road than we expect. His modus operandi is usually invisible and mysterious. He often works over long periods of time and does not answer our prayers all at once. But he answers them. The answer is guaranteed.
We frequently can become discouraged and think that our prayers are without effect, and this is what Satan wants. Satan wants us to live by sight and not by faith. But this is why we are exhorted to pray and not doubt. The promise is here before us: the Lord hears the prayer of the righteous.
What does Jesus say? In John 14 he says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do…If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” (Jn 14:13-14) He repeats it twice, as if to say, “Go ahead, try me.”
Of course, this reminds us that the prayers we lift are to be "righteous" prayers. What does it mean to pray in Jesus name? We've seen already that it means that we are praying through Christ and demonstrating a spirit of submission. Our prayers then, must be in submission to Him. In other words, our prayers must be Scriptural.
This is why the Lord's prayer is so helpful. When Jesus gave the Lord's Prayer he was expressing the kinds of things He wants us. He was essentially saying, "These are the kinds of prayers that I will answer." When you pray "hallowed be your name," that's the kind of thing Jesus loves. God has already pledged that he will answer that prayer.
When you pray for your daily bread, or for a job that will help to ensure your daily provision, then that is a prayer that moves God to act. He begins to coordinate all the affairs of the earth in order to answer that petition.
This is, of course, not just limited to the Lord's Prayer. Any prayer that we make in accordance with the revealed with of God will be answered. He hears it. He is moved by it. And he acts so as to answer it.
Why is it that Elijah was able to shut the heavens and keep the rain at bay? It was because he read in the book of Deut. that God will cause the rain to cease when his people disobeyed. Elijah was a man just like us. But James says he prayed. He prayed that God would discipline His people. And because it was based in God's will, that prayer had power.
The same is true when he was on Mt Carmel. The Baal prophets screamed and shouted, but their prayers were not heard. God was far from them. But God heard the prayer of Elijah. When Elijah bowed and voiced his supplication, the Lord was ready to answer.
We might not bring fire down from heaven, but each of us can be just as determined to beseech the Lord. We have just as much power in prayer.
Conclusion:
Herein we have our greatest incentive to pray. Let us remember that our supplications do influence the course of history. And let us never then tire of bending God’s ever attentive ear.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501197.html