The Power of Earnest Prayer
An excerpt from the upcoming book Unshakeable Testimony by Eric Bailey: I once read a social media post written by a young atheist woman who attempted to convince her readers that prayer didn’t work, did absolutely nothing, and was a waste of time and energy. I immediately thought of Nephi’s counsel on the subject:
And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.
But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.
(2 Nephi 32:8–9)
The post made me ponder the reasons why we pray. What are the actual benefits of doing so? If we were to strip away all the spiritual reasons for prayer and think about it from a purely secular viewpoint, we would see that prayer puts us into a state of gratitude.
After addressing our Heavenly Father, we thank Him for our blessings. This, in and of itself, has a number of benefits within the body. According to Emily Fletcher, the founder of Ziva, gratitude acts as a “natural antidepressant.” An article on the subject further clarifies: “The effects of gratitude, when practiced daily, can be almost the same as medications. It produces a feeling of long-lasting happiness and contentment, the physiological basis of which lies at the neurotransmitter level. When we express gratitude and receive the same, our brain releases dopamine and serotonin, the two crucial neurotransmitters responsible for our emotions, and they make us feel ‘good’. They enhance our mood immediately, making us feel happy from the inside.”[1]
Dopamine also helps to improve digestion. According to Carly Vandergriendt, it helps to regulate the release of insulin from the pancreas. “It also affects movement in your small intestine and colon to help move food through your system.” She says that serotonin is “a chemical precursor to melatonin, the main hormone involved in sleep. Your body needs serotonin from your pineal gland to produce melatonin.”[2]
We can thus deduce that praying and expressing gratitude before meals can aid in the digestive process, while praying and expressing gratitude at night can help us sleep.
We also petition our Heavenly Father with faithful requests during prayer, which fosters a sense of belief and hope. So from a purely secular viewpoint, to claim that prayer “doesn’t work, does absolutely nothing, and is a waste of time and energy” is completely false. There are tremendous physical, mental, and emotional health benefits from prayer.
What about the spiritual power of prayer?
President Russell M. Nelson shared:
Recently while visiting a nursing care facility, I spoke with a woman about her family. She told me that she had three sons, two of whom visit her regularly.
“What about your third son?” I asked.
“I don’t know where he is,” she replied tearfully. “I haven’t heard from him for years. I don’t even know how many grandchildren I have.”
If such a mother yearns to hear from her sons, it is easy to see why a loving Father in Heaven wants to hear from His children.
President Nelson continued, explaining that prayer allows us to show our love for God:
Some people pray only when confronted with personal problems. Others don’t pray at all. A scripture makes this observation: “Ye do not remember the Lord your God in the things with which he hath blessed you, but ye do always remember your riches, not to thank the Lord your God for them. Yea, your hearts are not drawn out unto the Lord, but they do swell with great pride, unto boasting, and unto great swelling, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manners of iniquities” (Helaman 13:22).[3]
When are we supposed to pray? The Lord said, “Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good” (D&C 90:24). Alma said, “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God” (Alma 37:37).
Continuing further, President Nelson shares:
Many of us have had experiences with the sweet power of prayer. One of mine was shared with a stake patriarch from southern Utah. I first met with him in my medical office more than 40 years ago, during the early pioneering days of surgery of the heart. This saintly soul suffered much because of a failing heart. He pleaded for help, thinking that his condition resulted from a damaged but repairable valve in his heart.
Extensive evaluation revealed that he had two faulty valves. While one could be helped surgically, the other could not. Thus, an operation was not advised. He received this news with deep disappointment.
Subsequent visits ended with the same advice. Finally, in desperation, he spoke to me with considerable emotion: “Dr. Nelson, I have prayed for help and have been directed to you. The Lord will not reveal to me how to repair that second valve, but He can reveal it to you. Your mind is so prepared. If you will operate upon me, the Lord will make it known to you what to do. Please perform the operation that I need, and pray for the help that you need.”
His great faith had a profound effect upon me. How could I turn him away again? Following a fervent prayer together, I agreed to try. In preparing for that fateful day, I prayed over and over again but still did not know what to do for his leaking tricuspid valve. Even as the operation commenced, my assistant asked, “What are you going to do for that?”
I said, “I do not know.”
We began the operation. After relieving the obstruction of the first valve, we exposed the second valve. We found it to be intact but so badly dilated that it could no longer function as it should. While examining this valve, a message was distinctly impressed upon my mind: Reduce the circumference of the ring. I announced that message to my assistant. “The valve tissue will be sufficient if we can effectively reduce the ring toward its normal size.”
But how? We could not apply a belt as one would use to tighten the waist of oversized trousers. We could not squeeze with a strap as one would cinch a saddle on a horse. Then a picture came vividly to my mind, showing how stitches could be placed—to make a pleat here and a tuck there—to accomplish the desired objective. I still remember that mental image—complete with dotted lines where the sutures should be placed. The repair was completed as diagrammed in my mind. We tested the valve and found the leak to be reduced remarkably. My assistant said, “It’s a miracle.”
I responded, “It’s an answer to prayer.”
The patient’s recovery was rapid and his relief gratifying. Not only was he helped in a marvelous way, but surgical help for other people with similar problems had become a possibility. I take no credit. Praise goes to this faithful patriarch and to God, who answered our prayers. This faithful man lived for many more years and has since gone to his eternal glory.[4]
The opposite end of the spectrum might be what I call “prayer promises fallen flat.”
Have you ever experienced a time of difficulty and, in a moment of need, reached out on social media or via other forms of communication for help, only to receive messages from people that simply said, “I’ll pray for you”? Have you ever done the same with others? Did something about this seem a little … flat?
Imagine a young mother driving her child to school only to be in a horrific car crash just outside the school parking lot. The mother escapes physically unharmed but sees her child is unconscious and bleeding profusely. She dials 9-1-1, quickly explains the situation, and begs for an ambulance to be dispatched, only to hear the operator respond, “I’ll pray for you.”
The mother cries, “I appreciate prayers, but I need an ambulance!” Sadly, the operator has hung up.
Frustrated, the mother realizes she’ll need to get her child to the hospital herself. Her car is totaled, so she cries out to all the parents who are dropping their children off at school, “Please, anyone, I need to get my child to the hospital right now! Can anyone please give us a ride to the emergency room?”
In response, the other parents each respond, “I’ll pray for you.”
Now in total desperation, the mother remembers her ministering sister who lives three blocks from the school is a retired ER doctor. She carefully unbuckles her child, scoops her into her arms, and sprints as fast as she can to her ministering sister’s home. She arrives several minutes later completely exhausted and with her child’s blood dripping down her arms. With the little strength she has left, she pounds on her sister’s door. The elderly woman answers and sees this young mother gasping for breath and an unconscious child on her doorstep.
“Please!” the young mother begs. “We were just in a horrific car crash. My daughter desperately needs medical attention. Is there anything you can do?”
Smiling, the ministering sister simply responds, “I’ll pray for you,” and closes the door.
This is an extreme example, but how often do we pray for the missionaries to find success, for our friends and family members to receive comfort during low points in their lives, or for our Church leaders to be sustained in their many responsibilities without taking appropriate action to help bring about what we pray for?
In the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables, protagonist Jean Valjean sings “Bring Him Home,” and pleads with God on behalf of Marius, his daughter’s love interest, who is on the brink of death after being badly injured, to “let him live.” He then took immediate action. He went into the middle of a war zone, found Marius unconscious, and found a way to get him safely home by carrying him through the sewers. He prayed and then took immediate action to bring his prayer to fruition.
Alma in The Book of Mormon teaches, “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good” (Alma 37:37, emphasis added). The Apostle James further clarifies, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26).
While there are some cases where faithful prayers are all that can be offered, would it not be much more helpful in most cases to offer a prayer on behalf of those in need and take action to help resolve the situation? Popular author and speaker John Bytheway said, “Nephi always said, ‘I will go and do,’ not ‘I will sit and stew!’”[5]
After praying for the missionaries to have success, could we also prayerfully seek out those who are ready to hear the message of the Gospel, refer those people to the missionaries, and then invite the missionaries to teach those people in our homes?
After praying for our friends and family members to receive comfort, could we also reach out in private to see how we can best provide comfort for them? Could we offer a listening ear, arrange for meals to be delivered to their homes, offer to wash their dishes or babysit their children to alleviate their burdens, or put them in touch with proper mental health professionals when appropriate? Rather than saying, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you,” wouldn’t it be more effective to ask if we can help them in specific ways, such as “Would it be helpful if I mowed your lawn for you to save you some time this weekend?”
After praying for our Church leaders to be sustained in their responsibilities, could we also faithfully magnify our callings and perform our responsibilities so they don’t have to worry about whether or not they will get done?
We often hear about “the faith to move mountains” (see Matthew 17:20) and believe this means if we have enough faith, we can pray and God will “magically” move a mountain for us.
If we were faced with the task of literally moving a very real mountain, wouldn’t it make sense that God would want us to pray for strength and guidance and get to work digging? Wouldn’t we also find the best excavation team we could possibly hire to help us move that mountain?
Mother Teresa is credited with saying, “I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.”
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, “If you had appendicitis, God would expect you to seek a priesthood blessing and get the best medical care available. … Our Father in Heaven expects us to use all of the marvelous gifts He has provided in this glorious dispensation.”[6]
President M. Russell Ballard said, “Praying for justice, peace, the poor, and the sick is often not enough. After we kneel in prayer, we need to get up from our knees and do what we can to help—ourselves and others.”[7]
How, then, do we know which actions to take once we finish praying?
One potential idea to consider is the AWDRR principle. AWDRR (pronounced like “otter”) is an acronym for Ask, Write, Do, Report, Receive the Reward.
During our morning prayers, we can ask for specific action steps to be taken that day. I like to stay on my knees until specific ideas come to mind. Once they do, I write them down in a notebook or as a reminder on my phone so I don’t forget them.
As you do this, you may notice that ideas may come to your mind that don’t seem to make logical sense. Do not discard these ideas! As long as the ideas are legal, moral, ethical, and healthy (which, of course, they will be when coming from Above), there is a purpose in your implementing them. Immediately write them down (so you don’t forget them). Never try to simply remember your inspired action steps on your own without writing them down.
Once you have one or more action steps written down, ask for a confirmation that this is what the Lord wants you to accomplish that day. Once you have received a confirmation (for me, it’s always a feeling of peace), the next step, of course, is to do whatever you feel impressed to do.
One word of caution with this, however, is to make sure you aren’t simply writing down and doing what we call “busy work” instead of inspired action steps. There may be times when you actually feel impressed to do a particular action step, but you are tempted not to write it down and complete it because it doesn’t make sense or because you fear completing it. It may cause you to get outside your comfort zone, so you write down busy work to do instead of inspired action steps, such as going for a walk or doing your dishes. You may even feel justified in doing such menial tasks because they keep you busy, but they may not be what the Lord wants you to accomplish that day. That doesn’t mean that going for a walk or doing your dishes can’t be inspired action steps, but keep in mind the purpose of this exercise: tapping into divine guidance to help you carry out the work the Lord has for you.
As the day comes to a close, your evening personal prayer is the time to report your progress. Report during your prayer all that you accomplished that day. If you completed your action steps, great! You are now ready to receive the reward that comes from doing so. Sometimes the reward is additional action steps to be completed in coming days. Sometimes the reward is a blissful feeling of peace and accomplishment. Few prayers are as gratifying as those that include the words “I accomplished all that Thou gavest me to do today.” Sometimes the reward comes in the form of a note of appreciation from someone whose life you improved as you accomplished your action steps.
If you fail to complete everything you wrote down to do that day, ask the Lord for forgiveness and for help to be a better steward over the inspiration you receive in the future. You may find yourself struggling to receive further action steps until you complete the ones you have been given. Be patient with yourself. The goal of this exercise is progress, not perfection.
President Russell M. Nelson taught, “Pray in the name of Jesus Christ … And then listen! Write the thoughts that come to your mind. Record the feelings and follow through with actions that you are prompted to take. As you repeat this process day after day, month after month, year after year, you will ‘grow into the principle of revelation.’”[8]
[1] Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury, “The Neuroscience of Gratitude and Effects on the Brain,” Positivepsychology.com, April 9, 2019, https://positivepsychology.com/neuroscience-of-gratitude/.
[2] Carly Vandergriendt, “What’s the Difference Between Dopamine and Serotonin,” Healthline.com, July 16, 2020, https://www.healthline.com/health/dopamine-vs-serotonin.
[3] Russell M. Nelson, “Sweet Power of Prayer,” April 2003 General Conference, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2003/04/sweet-power-of-prayer?lang=eng.
[4] Nelson, “Sweet Power of Prayer.”
[5] John Bytheway, Heroes: Lessons from The Book of Mormon, Special Devotional, 2005.
[6] Jeffrey R. Holland, “Like a Broken Vessel,” October 2013 General Conference, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2013/10/like-a-broken-vessel?lang=eng.
[7] M. Russell Ballard, “Watch Ye Therefore, and Pray Always,” October 2020 General Conference, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2020/10/41ballard?lang=eng.
[8] Russell M. Nelson, “Revelation for the Church, Revelation for Our Lives,” April 2018 General Conference, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2018/04/revelation-for-the-church-revelation-for-our-lives?lang=eng.