Prayer isn't Magic!

I must admit that I have often prayed for something - hoping that it would suddenly (magically?) appear... in an instant (or a very short time, at least). Then everything would be all right... like Cinderella, whose "fairy-godmother" waved her "magic wand" and immediately changed the pumpkin into the fancy carriage, and everything else was different too... (for a while).

But prayer isn't like that. After years of praying for situations large and small, I have come to the conclusion that prayer is often about growth... Sometimes God changes situations or illnesses quickly - and we recognize those miraculous answers to prayer. But, in my experience, prayer more often sets in motion growth that is almost imperceptible - like the slow and steady growth of a tree, with its leaves and branches visible - while the equally slow but steady growth of its roots isn't visible above ground.














We often don't appreciate how large a root-system a plant needs. There was a tornado in Edmonton, Alberta in 1987. We were in Edmonton a month later, and I took this picture of a patch of overturned trees.

What are those tall things sticking up in the air? I asked my aunt who lives there. You said all the trees were overturned.

Those are the roots! she replied.

I stared in amazement: Some were as tall as the trees that the tornado had uprooted! Of course! Tall trees need a strong, wide root base to hold them up!

Sometimes we pray but we don't realize that God is answering that prayer - because we simply can't see the (necessary) changes that are occurring, just like we don't see the growth of the roots - which are holding up the tree.

One of my favorite authors, Catherine Marshall, tells of once writing some prayer requests on egg-shaped pieces of paper, putting them in a book - then forgetting about what she had done. She discovered the prayer "eggs" years later when she opened the book and the slips of paper fell out. As she re-read them, she was amazed to see that every prayer had been answered. (I should probably add that this "exercise" was part of a workshop on prayer that Catherine attended, where the point of the exercise was to visually remind oneself that some answers to prayer take time... She tells of it in the chapter "The Waiting Prayer" in her book, Adventures in Prayer.)

For me, keeping a prayer journal helps me remember what I have prayed about. Re-reading it years later, I am amazed at how the prayers were answered - often in ways I could never have imagined.