I was thinking about fervent, effectual prayers.  You know, the kind we all want.  The kind that “avails much”.  The kind that James 5:16 talks about.

Have you ever paid close attention to your prayers to see which ones were availing much, and which ones seemed to bounce off the ceiling?  I’m sure you have some that availed much.  Are there similarities in them?  After all, what is the point of prayers that avail nothing?

Actually, prayers that avail nothing, probably teach us quite a bit.  They teach our heart about its effective position with Father.

Anyway, as I thought about my own prayers that availed much, there were two kinds, and possibly a third.  One was prayers of safety and protection, the other is weather, and the third might be my State.  It seems odd to me, but it is very rare for me to have a prayer about either of these things that doesn’t produce exactly what I asked.

Healing prayers are sometimes hit and miss for me, except  I seem to be effective praying for well-being via protection and safety.  So I thought about that.  When did this begin?

Well, my first instance of effectual prayer for safety and protection came when I saw a vision of my brother and his family in a car accident.  I was 15 years old, and when I turned to my Mom in fear and panic, she told me to pray for them.  I prayed very passionately because I was shaking uncontrollably from the vision.  It was like the vision was literally playing inside my chest, shaking me.  My prayer was something like “… and don’t let them be hurt at all, not at all”.

The accident happened within a few minutes of the vision, and unfolded just as I’d seen it.  Their car flew 50 feet off an embankment, however, it didn’t roll over, as I’d seen, and none of them were hurt, as I’d seen.  Thank you, Jesus.

My next effectual prayer was for my children.  Again I was uncontrollably shaking from a vision of them in a car accident, but I remembered Mom’s guidance to pray.  So, again I prayed that they wouldn’t be hurt at all.

The accident happened just as I saw it, except the car didn’t flip over onto the highway, and they weren’t hurt.  Again, thank you, Jesus.

One time I received a prophecy that my car would be in an accident involving me and my son.  I prayed and even anointed the car, but the accident still happened, however the only injury was a scrape on my son’s arm.

Why wasn’t my prayer for my car successful?  It was a new car, and I really liked it a whole lot.  Still, it didn’t hold the same place as my children do in my heart.

This same premise holds when I pray for politics, or the lottery (yes, we have all done it), or sports.  The results are swayed very little by my prayers, no matter how passionate, or emotional I become.  The results of these things sit in a different place in my heart, and I can get as radically emotional as I wish, but they don’t move into the place of power.  They don’t pull at the real compassion, the kind that changes thing.  That only comes regarding relationships in specific circumstances.

Prayers to change a specific person’s situation are much different than prayers for blanket issues covering a group.  The focus on the one person who is suffering carries a compassionate relationship that sits deep in my heart, and soars above the ceiling.  However, focus on a blanket issue has a million targets, each of them different, and none of them relational to me.

I believe this might be why Christianity has such little impact on politics in general, and in some ways seems to have more negative impact than anything.  We aren’t addressing a personal relationship and relationship is where the power sits.  The closer the relationship, the more power I bring to bear on any situation.

And relationship can be more than just a person.

For instance, I prayed for my garden when a hail storm had decimated it.  I had a relationship with that garden, and I felt its pain of loss just as though it was a person.  There were only a few stubby, stems sticking up from the ground, and I felt each one’s shame, and each one’s total loss.  My deepest compassion for them was aroused as I knelt down, and touched each stub with my fingers, and whispered that I loved them, and that they should not be discouraged.  I encouraged them to push forward, and be exactly who they were created to be.

The result was the best garden I ever had.  It was the biggest and produced the most.

Relationship doesn’t always require a lot of time, either.

When I was 14 years old, I was overcome with compassion for a man who was almost dead from muscular dystrophy.  The overwhelming passion that took over my heart made me seek a place where I could sit alone for 15 minutes because I couldn’t control what was happening to me.  Once again, I was shaking inside, and I could barely speak.  I didn’t have a relationship with this man, but when we walked into his room, I was overcome with the deepest empathy for him.

We got word a few months later that he had begun to improve immediately after that visit.  The muscular dystrophy disappeared, and he returned to his normal, strong former self.

Relationship can happen in a moment.  It doesn’t always take a lifetime.  People fall in love sometimes with a glance across a room.  Their hearts open and touch.  It’s more spiritual than physical.  That’s why we write songs and poetry to describe it’s fantastical behavior.

Weather seems to evoke that same relationship in my heart.  When I look at clouds, it feels like they float inside my chest, as though they belong to me, as though they are child-like entities with souls.  The only time they haven’t done exactly what I’ve asked, is when I don’t connect with them.  If I speak flippantly, without paying attention, my success is 50/50.  But when I look at them and let them wander through my soul, I touch them just as completely as they touch me.  I don’t need to yell at them, or command them loudly or angrily.  I speak to them often the same way I speak to my sweet doggie.

One more relationship that has to do with territory may become a part of our soul.  Colorado is like that for me.  I moved away twice, and came back because I couldn’t bear to live without the mountains, the sun, and the climate here.  In my estimation, Colorado is just about as perfect as can be, and I love it deeply.

Recently, the Hayden Pass fire raged in the mountains about 34 miles from our house.  I wanted to speak to it for the sake of the forests, but Father checked me.  I got His impression that the forest needed to be cleared in that area, and it stunned me that He didn’t want the fire to stop immediately.  Fire is not inherently evil.  It has a positive mandate from creation, and simply needs our loving guidance to operate again from that mandate.

Instead, I told the fire that no homes or people were to be harmed.  It is 15 days since the fire started, and it is 55% contained.   Only one hunting cabin has burned.  No homes or people were injured, and it is no longer burning near any populated areas.  It is expected to burn out gradually, and with the help of afternoon storms.

In my last article, I compassionately addressed protection and safety for the police officers in Colorado.  Rather than target a group of unknown officers who have no relational value in my heart, I saw them in the context of my State, which holds great relational value.  From that perspective, Holy Spirit caused me to tap into that compassionate power, and I felt the results in the spirit realm.

Compassion is key to relationship that elicits power from our spirit.  It is that power that teaches us to rule and reign in this heavenly Kingdom come to earth.

The point of this contemplative article is my thinking that I can’t alone produce the kind of compassion that changes things simply by making a decision to do it.  I believe that is why some of my prayers for people and situations have produced no results.  My compassion was intellectually charged rather than spiritually relational.

The kind of compassion that rises up inside me and changes things, carries the Holy Spirit fire inside it.  It compels and overwhelms me.  I don’t command and control it, but rather it guides me when I’m receptive.

However, I have learned that it is very easy for me to tap it regarding weather, and people’s safety and protection, especially in Colorado.  Those areas rise up in me easily without much bidding, and I can speak from them to “avail much”.

Since we are each so uniquely different, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to understand that the products of our prayers can be uniquely different from each other, and that we have mistakenly thought we could mass-produce exactly the same results.  I don’t believe the Apostles healing and miracles were performed and manifested exactly the same way.

We can be similar, but we must be unique.  Otherwise we are not walking in our true Identity, and therefore will not produce prayers that avail much.  When we mark the places in our past that the fire of compassion brought about true change, I believe we can discover it’s unique behavior inside us, and then we can more consistently operate in prayers that avail much.

After all, the scripture in James 5:16, says these prayers are produced by a righteous man, and we know that we haven’t produced any righteousness of our own.  It is Father’s presence within us that makes us righteous.  His nature combined with ours has created a unique being with unique characteristics.  This hybrid man is not a carbon copy of his brother.  No brother ever is.  We are simply the same species.

I want to clearly grasp the uniqueness of my prayers that avail much, and do it more consistently.  Then I can perform my optimally effective share in bringing heaven to earth via His Kingdom.

Blessings on your journey,

Faith