If all your prayers were answered would it change the world or just your life?
So goes the famous challenge. In our prayers do we focus on our problems and immediate challenges or do we lift our eyes beyond the confines of our narrow lives to the world outside?
Would ISIS collapse if our prayers were answered? Would peace reign in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and the Congo? Would rape and murder come to an end?
Or would your salary rise and would you make that train on time?
Constantly throughout the Bible God's people are urged to engage with the world around them and not to withdraw from it. They are challenged not to retreat and try and form a perfect island but be involved in the mess of everyday life. Jeremiah tells the Israelites in exile: "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (29:7).
Daniel, who did exactly as Jeremiah commanded, then began to plead for Jerusalem as well: "O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate," he says (9: 17-19). "O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy."
JI Packer's devotional journal based on his classic Knowing God tells Christians to "pray your way through the newspaper".
Weariness and lack of belief anything will change are roadblocks to taking up Packer's challenge. He writes about an "energetic prayer" that comes from meeting God.
"The invariable fruit of true knowledge of God is energy to pray for God's cause. This energy, indeed, can find an outlet and a relief of inner tension only when channelled into such prayer."
He continues: "If, however, there is in us little energy for such prayer and little consequent practice of it, this is a sure sign that as yet we scarcely know God."
It is typically strong stuff from Packer, but he is right. My lack of belief that God will change anything is because I am scarcely aware of God's power. My weariness about the state of the world is because I have forgotten the energy that comes from God's love for it.
"We can all pray," Packer writes. But what occupies our prayers? Do we have Daniel's and Jeremiah's courage to pray beyond our everyday life? Do we have God's energy to do battle with the great issues of our world? If not then maybe Packer is right – we "scarcely know God" – and it is time to go back to basics.
Knowing God Though The Year, by J I Packer, is published by Hodder and Stoughton, price £14.99.
