Powerful Prayer

Powerful Prayer

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

James 5:16

Down through the ages, a great religious debate has raged about how we are supposed to pray. Should we kneel? Should we be prostrate? Should we stand with our hands held toward heaven? Just what is the definitive way to pray?

Three clergymen were talking one day about the power of prayer in general and about the appropriate and effective positions in which to pray. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the background.

The Baptist minister said that he felt the key to powerful prayer was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a symbolic form of worship.

The Catholic priest insisted that real prayer was always conducted on one’s knees.

The charismatic preacher, however, suggested that they both had it wrong—the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face.

By that time the repairman could not stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected: “I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground.”

Perhaps, when it comes right down to it, what is really important when it comes to prayer is not the position of your body but the position of your heart. Whether you are standing, sitting, lying down, walking, climbing a mountain, or in any other physical position, the real question is this: Is your heart kneeling in humble submission before the great throne of God?

Father in heaven, please accept my humble prayer of praise and gratitude to you. You alone are worthy of my worship, and I bring my heart to you in obedience and honor. In Jesus’ precious name, amen.