Anxious Prayers

Anxious Prayers

I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth! He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps. The LORD himself watches over you! The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade.

Psalm 121:1-5

Oddly, instead of helping us grow in faith, prayer can sometimes become an excuse for allowing anxiety to churn in our hearts. Rather than directing our thoughts to God, we direct them to whatever is troubling us. It’s no surprise, then, that we come away still feeling fearful.

That’s what happened when Pastor Charles Stanley began to pray with a woman whose husband was undergoing surgery. As the woman prayed, Stanley realized that her prayers were becoming more frantic by the second. “Her total focus,” he noted, “was on her husband and the operation—none of her focus was truly on God as the Great Physician. . . . I interrupted her prayer and said, ‘Ma’am. We need to focus on what God can do in that operating room. We need to focus on who He is and what He is capable of doing.’”

So Stanley began to pray. “I praised God,” he says, “for His great love of her husband and of her, of His absolute authority over everything in that hospital, of His wisdom that could manifest itself in every move the surgeon made . . . and when I said ‘amen,’ I saw in her eyes the peace of God, rather than the sheer panic that had been there just minutes before.”^a

No wonder we need to pray for each other. Often another believer will have the faith we lack. Whether we are praying alone or with others, fear should be an impetus—rather than an obstacle—to prayer. If we let fear take the lead, it will only produce more fear. Instead, we should raise our eyes to God and to his Word, praising and thanking him for his faithfulness, reminding ourselves of who he is and how he loves us. Then we can bring him our requests.

Father, I lift my eyes to you because you are the source of my life. Thank you for all the ways you have loved me so faithfully, providing for me and hearing my prayers. You are good and kind and powerful, the Lord of heaven and earth, and I entrust my life to you.

^a Charles Stanley, Finding Peace: God’s Promise of a Life Free from Regret, Anxiety, and Fear (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 221–22.