The Little Prayers Count

Have you ever wished you had a stronger prayer life? The kind of prayer life that travails for others, wrestles things out, reaches into heaven to bring God’s will and purposes into earth? But then life takes over and the baby’s crying or your boss is pressuring or the kids need to be run to soccer practice…

God calls us to pray, and those deep travailing prayers are needful to push back the gates of hell and bring God’s divine intervention into earth. However, more and more I’ve come to realize that little prayers count. Little prayers add up to something that changes situations and brings people and situations into alignment with God’s heart while stopping evil in its tracks.

The Bible doesn’t delineate between what kind of prayers land in the golden bowls of incense mentioned in Revelation 5:8. Big prayers, little prayers — they all rise up before God’s throne to accumulate and fill the bowls. If you can believe this — if you have faith that deep intercession as well as the quickly breathed prayer can land in those bowls — it will change the way you live.

Our lives become a breathed prayer, our every moment becomes an alertness, a sensitivity to the need of the hour or the day or the minute. Imagine the scene from the classic film, “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the moment when a mashup of prayers rise before God and a divine intervention ensues to rescue George Bailey. You may not fully agree with the theology of the film, but it’s a wonderful picture of the power of accumulated prayers, prayers that cause the incense bowls to brim over and drip with faith-filled utterances.

The Bible is replete with scriptures confirming God’s listening ear. “I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God…” (Psalm 17:6 NLT)

“In my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry reached his ears.” (Psalm 18:6 NLT) Keep reading in Psalm 18 and you’ll get a marvelous picture of God’s response, God’s action in response to the cry of a heart.

Yes, we need to prayer scripture-based prayers, we need to bring God’s word before him and fall on our knees and travail. But we can’t discredit the quickly spoken prayers.

Pray when an ambulance passes by with its sirens screaming, pray as your scroll your Facebook feed, prayer in the line at the grocery store, pray as a school bus passes by.

“God send your help!” “God intervene!” “God, watch over the children!”

Pray in faith and pray believing that the little prayers count.