What if….A Reflection on Prayer

by Gary Corwin

Wade Byrum is a forty-something businessman and a fellow elder at our church. A short time ago he led our session in a devotional that I will not soon forget.

Wade Byrum is a forty-something businessman and a fellow elder at our church. A short time ago he led our session in a devotional that I will not soon forget.

After some initial self-humbling remarks he stated his purpose: “This is personal, it’s pointing at my heart. It’s exposing my heart. My hope is that I will spur you, and that you will also spur me, on to love and good deeds— most specifically, on to a deeper prayer life.”

He went on to identify personally with Augustine in the weaknesses reflected in his Confessions. He next pointed us to Epaphras in Colossians 4:12-13, who was “always wrestling in prayer” on behalf of others.

Wade then read a powerful series of “what if” statements about prayer, a portion of which I now share with you. Some of these I have adapted for a missions community context.

WHAT IF prayer was like touching the fingertips of God just enough for his bounty to flow down from his open hands?

WHAT IF I really believed that apart from accessing the Lord’s treasures through prayer, I only had trinkets to hand out?

WHAT IF I really believed that he who spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will also graciously give us all things?

WHAT IF I do not have because I do not ask?

WHAT IF I really believed Satan and his demons were brutally attacking God’s people one by one and that praying in the Spirit was the need of the hour?

WHAT IF I really believed prayer is more necessary for me than it was for Jesus when he walked this earth?

WHAT IF I really believed that I, and the sheep in my care, would experience God’s favor as never before if I was consumed by being with him in prayer?

WHAT IF I really believed Satan would come after me as never before if I was consumed by being with God in prayer?

WHAT IF I really believed hell was a place of eternal torment and that God moves in the hearts of men, women, boys and girls as I cry out to him?

WHAT IF my prayer life matched my prayer theology?

WHAT IF I was willing to be like Jacob—to not let go of God until he blessed me and this ministry—even if it meant being taken to the mat and getting up with a painful limp or a broken nose?

WHAT IF I was really devoted to prayer, expectant in prayer and thankful in prayer?

WHAT IF I really lived like Jesus did on this earth, and I just had to be with the Father?

WHAT IF I was more about the work of prayer and less about talk regarding prayer?

WHAT IF I simply lost track of time in prayer?

WHAT IF missionaries and missions leaders were known as those who loved to pray? What if someone said about us, “I don’t know all they do, but I do know that they pray for us”?

WHAT IF we gathered and our confession of personal and corporate sin brought supernatural healing?

WHAT IF I was willing to risk brokenness and confessed my sin, my frailties and my unbelief before God with you?

WHAT IF I really believed that during a prayer gathering we could find ourselves with our hearts and our bodies prostrate before the God who is a consuming fire?

WHAT IF a conversation took place between two missions supporters and one said, “What is the matter with those people? They are all sweaty and look worn out.”

What if the second person said, “Oh, those are the mission leaders and I’m sure they’ve been wrestling in prayer again”?

WHAT IF we experienced fasting and praying together in such a way that we longed for Jesus more than we long for physical food?

Missionary friends, we are called to pray. We are called to meet with the Lord individually, with family, in small groups, as agencies and corporately with God’s people. Each of these contexts is meant to feed the others.

Wade concluded his remarks: “I am not here to condemn (not even myself). I’m not here to try and motivate by guilt. I am here to share the gulf that exists between my beliefs and my practice, and to seek the Lord’s and your help.”

I suspect the same kind of gulf is very real to many of us? What if we acknowledged it and we really learned to ask, seek and knock (Matt. 7:7-8) until the gulf went away? What might that mean to the gospel’s progress in our generation?

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Gary Corwin is associate editor of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly and a special representative with SIM in Charlotte, N.C.

EMQ, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 146-147. Copyright © 2004 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

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