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I don't know about you, but I am ambivalent about prayer. Take that as a confession or simply as a statement, however you like. What I mean is that I truly believe in the power of prayer, but I find that my efforts to pray and my practice of prayer always fall short. For the Christian, and for most other religions for that matter, prayer is absolutely central to developing one's spiritual character. This is why the Apostle Paul urged us to "pray without ceasing."1 But if, on the one hand, prayer is so crucial to life in the Spirit and, on the other hand, I am so clumsy about it, where does that leave me? It leaves me in despair of ever becoming a spiritual man, unless ...
It is this unless part that I came across one day and revolutionized my thinking about prayer. I came across it as I was studying the book of Revelation. In Revelation, the prayers of God's people are symbolized by incense that rises to the throne of God (Rev 5:8; 8:3-4). The first thing I notice about this imagery is that incense generally has a pleasant fragrance. You just don't burn nasty, filthy smelling incense, unless you're some kind of weird masochist who enjoys nasty things, like some kids awhile back who actually purchased a soft drink that tasted like vomit. Normal people don't do that. And normally, burning incense produces a fragrant smell.
So, what does this mean? It means that our prayers smell good to God. They please Him. He finds pleasure in receiving our prayers. That, in itself is pretty awesome when you think about it. The Creator of the Universe actually enjoys hearing what I have to say. Pretty incredible when you consider that often not even my wife enjoys what I have to say. But there is more...
In the second passage I listed above (Rev 8:3-4), an angel from God's throne room is carrying a golden bowl filled with incense which is the prayers of God's people. The very fact that the bowl is made of gold is another indicator of how precious God esteems these prayers. But here is the amazing thing: The text says that the angel "IS GIVEN MUCH INCENSE to OFFER WITH the prayers of all the saints."
The idea here is that the Lamb of God, Christ Himself, is adding His prayers to our prayers before they ascend to God. This addition of His prayers to our prayers makes even our most feeble efforts at prayer perfect and complete in God's eye.
In case you think I'm pushing the envelope a little with my interpretation here, let me remind you of what Paul said about prayer in his great passage on the redemption of the created world. Paul writes:
"The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words" (Rom 8:26).
I don't know about you, but that just takes a tremendous weight off my shoulders as I approach God in prayer. I now know that, though my prayers are feeble and awkward at best, His Spirit makes them a fragrant aroma in His estimation.
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Reassuring
I appreciate these insights. They are reassuring to myself -- another who sometimes wonders if my prayers matter. I know in my head they do. Scripture says so and I believe scripture. But I want to more than "know" it. I want to feel it in my heart. Your blog post is timely because of something I have been experiencing in my own prayer life.
I have lately been praying that I will hear God's voice. I have been open to understanding more about God and more about what he wants to do through me. To achieve those things I must hear him. Your comments helped me to realize that as my focus has been more on hearing God, my own side of the "conversation" of prayer has been less a problem. Now I see that what is sweet to God's ears is my prayer that I am ready to hear his voice.
I have been hearing whispers and I am anxious to hear more ...
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