Does It Matter If More People Pray for Abby? Can We Force God to Do What We Want?

I was asked today why getting more and more people to pray for Abby does any good. Does a thousand prayers get God moving more than one, or ten?

James 5:16 ...the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

In context, this verse follows a series of questions: are you in trouble? Are you happy? Are you sick? Have you sinned? In other words, no matter what the situation: pray, praise, confess, worship. James states plainly:

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. So if the prayer of one is powerful and effective, how much more is ten thousand prayers of the righteous? The answer is obvious but let's be very clear...

One prayer from one person is as effective as a million prayers from a million people – the result is not in our hands… we cannot sway God by numbers or coercion. God’s will is done no matter what. We don't pray because WE are tricking God, manipulating God, forcing God or obligating God (despite much today about "spiritual laws" that supposedly obligate God to act...). Praying changes, and benefits us.... and brings joy and glory to God.

God's WILL will be done even if no one ever prayed... so our prayer is not a force that gets God doing what we want.

Abby was perfectly content today just laying next to her little friend who was visiting...

By asking people to join a prayer effort, we bring God joy as He sees His children care for each other; we demonstrate to the world that we are knit together in love and have concern for those in our Christian family we have never even met; we witness to others who are without faith or weak in faith as the widening prayer circle encompasses those in different phases of spiritual growth (or have none).

We follow God’s leading to influence as many people as possible through our trials by asking them to join us and pray, and then by keeping everyone informed of everything God is doing in answer to that prayer. Our faith is built, God's glory is increased. By praying, others become emotionally invested in the situation and share the goodness of God to even more people because they have a tangible story to communicate.

We cannot the number of people who have written us to say they were blessed by praying for Abby, that they have grown spiritually because of what they are witnessing in her life (the care for her, God’s goodness to us), and countless stories of “I told someone else and now they have been blessed and their faith has grown…”

No, sheer numbers do not coerce God or cause one hair on His fiery head to be even slightly moved. One sincere word from any of His children can move mountains if God responds.

Being created in God’s image, and being a father myself, I can certainly understand the pleasure it must bring Him to see multitudes of people offer prayers on one little child’s behalf (as a parent, would you not be overjoyed?)… prayers for healing, prayers of thanks, prayers of love, prayers of wanting to see God’s will done.

By ever-widening the circle of folks praying for Abby, we ever-widen the number of people who now have testimony of God’s goodness and faithfulness which transforms the difficulty and trial we face into a reason to rejoice and praise God.

Abby’s life, if it is to be short, will result in the growing faith, increased unity and blessing of thousands of people who grew spiritually, experienced God and brought others into God’s presence because of it.

THAT is why we continue to ask people to tell everyone they know about Abby and ask them to pray. If she dies at fours years old, she will end up having a tremendous impact on great multitude of people’s lives and faith.

So each day this week, we will ask and remind everyone we know to please:

• Would you remember to pray for Abby on Wednesday, the 14^th as she begins this new phase?
  

• Would you email your friends and family, ask them to:
  
  
  
  • Pray for Abby
  
  
  • Here is a link that will open up a prewritten email you can quickly send to friends and family: http://www.brentriggsblog.com/abbylink.asp
  
  
  • Visit the blog for updates about her: www.riggsfamilyblog.com
  
  
  • If they are not familiar with her, here is a page about Abby:
    
    http://www.riggsfamilyblog.com/2009/01/about-abby.html
    


• If you know of other prayer groups, walls, chains, lists, websites, etc. would you sign up or include Abby in them?

At this point, there are many thousands of people who are knit together in love, sharing a story of faith and God's blessing because of one little girl. How much joy do you think God Our Father gets because of that?

How many lives will be touched, and how much glory would God get if there were tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands praying, watching, praising, proclaiming and testifying to God's love for one precious little child?

THAT is why we keeping asking more people to pray....

Abby opened a late Christmas present while dressed all in pink.