EMPOWERING PRAYER

Empowering Prayer
By Eddie Smith and Michael Hennen

If we wish to reach our objective, we must be looking in the same direction, focusing on the same thing. Unless our eyes are under the unified command of our brain, we cannot see clearly. From what our eyes observe, our brain defines the singular objective toward which our bodies move. Without the help of our brain, which performs many different functions, we will not be able to define our goals or determine our target. Unity among men is "group focus."
When you pick up a map to plan a trip, what’s the first thing you look for? Current location. You must first know where you are, then you look for your destination and prepare to make the trip. Now you've established your goal.
An undefined goal is an unachievable goal. If you don't know where you're going, you'll neither know which road to take nor when you've arrived. So it is with prayer.

Without a clear objective,
our prayers will accomplish nothing.

Just as the brain assesses what the eyes see and thus determines the target, pastoral leadership must define the prayer goals (targets) for a church. Regardless of whether our targets are strategic or tactical, it’s imperative that they are specific, and we must have a definite strategy for reaching them. With indefinite goals, people's minds will wander, they will eventually lose interest, and the prayer ministry will dissipate. With an ill-defined strategy, people will unconsciously sense they are wasting time and effort on an indefinite or unachievable goal.

One night I (Eddie) was in a college prayer meeting. The gymnasium was filled with passionate intercessors praying for revival and spiritual awakening in our city. Then a young student stood to pray. "Lord," he said tearfully, "I will neither eat nor sleep until every man, woman, boy, and girl in Houston, Texas, has come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ!"
I knew his heart. Although I'm a granddaddy today, I too was once a college freshman. I slipped to his side following the meeting and said, "Billy, I appreciate your passionate prayer for souls tonight; but I think it's only fair to tell you that the prayer you prayed cannot be answered."
"Why?" he asked, "Why would you say that?"
"It cannot be answered because Christ Himself has told us that the road to heaven is narrow, and few will find it."

When we pray, we must first define a specific, achievable objective--a reasonable goal.

Realistic Goals and Verifiable Results

Never forget, our main goal is not merely to identify prayer targets but to reach them. Good leaders set realistic goals when they select targets. Nothing is more frustrating for a battle-weary prayer warrior than interceding for hours, months, days, and years and never realizing results. Results, in the life of an intercessor, are often the only reward he or she ever receives. To obtain verifiable results, leaders must select definite and achievable goals.

Unverifiable results are not results,
they are coincidences.

Praying for a healthy man to get healed is a waste of time—after prayer; we can’t claim his healing unless he was verifiably sick. No true intercessor is comforted by such “miracles.” Intercessors want verifiable results, and so does God. Hence, the goals leaders set must be achievable. It’s impossible to verify progress toward an unachievable goal.
Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of strategic prayer is our failure to verify results. It seems to me (Eddie) that we typically pray our way from one problem to the next, rather than from one solution to the next.

It is reported that when George Mueller died, his prayer journal yielded more than 50,000 answers to prayer. If we died, our journals might list 50,000 requests, because we tend to focus on our requests themselves. Mueller focused on God's responses!

Consider for a moment. If you were God, whose prayer would you answer: the one who continually focused on his need, or the one who continually focused on your response? God loves praise. He does what He does for praise. Track, record, and celebrate His responses so you don’t gradually move into dry routine prayers rather than powerful divine experiences.