Stories from God: Everyday People Experiencing God in Extraordinary Ways

Chapter 3: Stories of Answered Prayer

     I once taught a class on prayer at my church. I chose the topic not because I felt like I knew a lot about prayer, or that I was specially gifted in the art of prayer. If anything the exact opposite was true. I really knew very little about prayer. I actually chose the topic of prayer because I felt like I needed to learn more about how to pray and what to pray for.

I was dissatisfied with my idea of prayer. Prayer was more a time for me to ask God to do things and that never seemed quite right. It certainly did not satisfy me. I knew that if I was to teach a class on prayer, I would have to discover a lot more about the nature of prayer.

To prepare for the class, I searched the Word for an indication of exactly what is prayer. I found examples of prayers, both good and bad. I found commands about prayer. However, I still felt like I did not know what prayer was all about until I came across a short verse in the beginning of chapter three of Genesis that finally provided a hint at the nature of prayer.

After Adam and Eve sinned but before God confronted them, Genesis 3:8 gives a very brief but powerful picture of life in the Garden. It begins with the statement that Adam and Eve heard ". . . the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day . . ." The fact that God walked in the garden did not surprise Adam and Eve. Evidently, God had walked in the garden with them on other occasions. This time, instead of walking with Him, they feared His response to their disobedience. They hid from God.

When I read this passage before, I always focused on the behavior of Adam and Eve hiding from God. Now a picture formed in my mind of the Lord God walking with His children in the garden in the cool of the day. I suddenly realized that this is what prayer is all about. God made us, so we could walk with Him in that garden. Because of sin, however, we cannot physically join Him in the garden. As a result, prayer is our opportunity to be with God. Prayer is our substitute for what we lost when sin entered the world. It may be a powerful substitute, but it is a far cry from what we will eventually experience we can once again walk with Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day.

I began to picture prayer not so much as a letter sent to God asking Him to do things for me but as a time when I was walking with God in a garden. As a result, prayer became more of a conversation with a friend in which there are times of silence, times of sharing, and times of listening that are always surrounded by the beautiful creation of God. Prayer became more significant and powerful to me than it had ever been.

Recently, someone read the 23rd Psalm during a church service. I, like most Christians, have always counted this as one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. It is a beautiful picture of David's relationship with God. Only this time, as the Psalm was read, I started to compare David's words to the picture of prayer in Genesis. I was struck by how David's words paint a very similar picture. Phrases like "Lying down in the green pastures," and "Walking by the waters" sounded a lot like walk beside the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day. Could it be that David was describing the nature of his prayer life when he wrote this beautiful Psalm?

An interesting, but certainly not definitive exercise, would be to ask who in the Bible was the greatest prayer warrior, with the obvious exception of Jesus. You might nominate people like Paul, David or Daniel. However, based on this concept of prayer, there is one individual who stands out. He is Enoch, about whom very little is known. One thing we do know about Enoch is that he "walked with God" (Genesis 5:24). He was the first person since Adam to be described in this way. Apparently, Enoch understood prayer after the fall like no one before or since. His faith was so strong that he was included in the faith hall of fame (Hebrews 11). When I understood this picture of prayer, I wanted to be like Enoch and walk with God. I wanted my prayer life to be so strong that it brought me into the presence of God.