Try Praying by the Principle
by Pastor Mark Adams, Hillside FMC, Evanston, IL

Pastor Mark Adams

That great Christian author and thinker, George McDonald, wrote: "Why pray, if God loves us and knows all we need before we pray? What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need — the need of himself? What if the good of all our smaller and lower needs lies in this, that they help drive us to God? Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other needs; prayer is the beginning of that communion."

In light of Scripture, this principle seems to be the absolute truth. New Testament prayer rarely models prayers that Christians would be successful at business, healthy of body, and or even happy in general, but that they would be full of Christ, full of his knowledge, full of his wisdom, full of a knowledge of his will to the point that our lives are characterized by Christlikeness. This is real spirituality.

There are 159 references to prayer in the New Testament. There are nine references to prayer for healing or safety. That is, less than 6 percent of the Bible's teaching and examples for the prayer life include what we spend about 80 percent of our prayer time pleading for. Most of the New Testament prayers are for spiritual growth, increased life in Christ, boldness in sharing the gospel, patience in affliction, obedience to God's commands, ability to suffer for Christ.

Are you familiar with the Pareto Principle? It's also known as the 80/20 rule. It flows from the work of 19th century economist and gardener Vilfredo Pareto, who noticed that 80 percent of Italy's land mass was owned by 20 percent of the population and that a mere 20 percent of the pea pods in his garden were producing 80 percent of his harvest. For over a hundred years this ratio, while not an absolute rule, has withstood numerous applications. Twenty percent of a church does 80 percent of the work. Eighty percent of the problems in an organization come from the same 20 percent of its constituents. Eighty percent of your measurable results come from 20 percent of your to-do list. Knowing this, businesses and individuals and churches have turned around failing endeavors by identifying those 20 percent of things that were causing 80 percent of the troubles and dealing with them, or by investing most heavily in the 20 percent of the people or ideas or activities that are producing 80 percent of the positive results.

Well, this works in our spiritual lives as well. If 80 percent or more of our prayers are for temporal things, and 20 percent or less for eternal things, we will find that we may be praying all the time, but we are not really growing in our spiritual lives. Likewise, if we know that praying for spiritual, eternal, life?transforming things will bring about 80 percent of the results we hope to achieve as Christians, we should invest our time and energy in cultivating this type of prayer.

So what should we be praying for? Well, everything and constantly. There truly is nothing too small to lift in prayer, or so large that God can't deal with it! However, be sure to invest your energy in praying for things that really matter. For example, try this one on for size for your wife, child or Sunday School teacher: "Dear Lord, allow ______ to grow in your grace, to be full of your spirit, to know your will, to be humble before you, to grow in forgiveness and patience to be a vessel of your spirit, to grow deeper in spiritual understanding, to share the gospel with more clarity and boldness and to endure present hardship with joy in Christ."

It could change a lot! It could change you!