Harmonized Prayers

Harmonized Prayers

If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. Matthew 18:19

A FEW YEARS AGO, a friend endured an extremely long, intense season of prayer for a family member who was making bad decisions and harming the people she loved. But my friend knew at the outset that she would not be able to make this prayer journey alone. She knew she would need someone who could pray with her in faith nearly as intensely as she did. The well-wishes of friends and acquaintances who offered to lift up a prayer for her were helpful and kind, but she needed more—a partner interceding with her in a persistent, years-long petition to the Father. She needed someone who would build up her faith at certain weak moments and carry the weight of it in others.

God hears every prayer we present to him, but he seems especially drawn to those that are presented in unison. When we align in prayer with other believers—not just in the specifics of the request but with an urgency and intensity of heart with others who are as committed to believing as we are—we are expanding the conversation on earth with our holy intercessors in heaven, broadening the base of our faith, and confirming that the Holy Spirit is moving. An independent prayer may or may not be responding to the Spirit’s prompts; two or more are less likely to go off in selfish directions. Like witnesses required for a legal testimony, two corroborating words are far more reliable than one. And when that corroboration is expanded even further to many other believers, the testimony of prayer grows stronger.

There is nothing in Scripture that says a request from someone alone in his or her prayer room is invalid. God does hear, and he responds to the secret petitions of our hearts. But there’s a reason we seem to have an impulse to bring others into the circle of our praying, sharing our requests as widely as possible. The union of fellowship in prayer, even from different perspectives, is powerful. God attends to the pleas of his people when they reach his ear in perfect harmony.

Christians are not lone rangers.