I Want a Metal Detector

One night last week, I was praying as I went to sleep. After just a few minutes I stopped. I realized that I had no idea what to pray. The things I was praying for seemed so superficial, so surface.

I feel like I've been wimpy in my prayers.

I had read in Acts where Peter sent everyone out of a room and knelt in prayer over the body of Tabitha. Then he told her to get up, and she did! That is the power of prayer! A 19 year old friend of my cousins was in a car accident. Her church was praying while doctors were losing her in the ER, and she stabalized. She did in fact pass away but because she stabalized they were able to save organs that saved the lives of others. A young girl from church was injured in a four-wheeler accident. Three friends of her family came into her room at the rehab center and prayed for her healing. When they were done she got up to go to the window to watch the sun set. Therapists were in disbelief when she came walking into therapy the next day instead of being wheeled.

So, what does this have to do with a metal detector? I want my prayers to go deeper. I don't want to just pray for the things I can see but for what is found down deep.

Romans 8:26-27
"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weekness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will."

That's the depth I want. I want desperately for my older brother to find peace in Christ. I have no idea what he's going through. The Spirit knows it all.

James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."

It's no accident that the same verse that speaks of the power of the prayer of a righteous man, also calls us to confess our sins. Sin stands in the way of our intamacy with God. Once we are saved our salvation is sealed. But future sin, if not addressed, will affect our relationship with our Father.

I want to pray like a metal detector, and find the hidden treasures that cannot be seen by my eyes surveying the surface. I also want to uncover the junk, to let God reveal to me the things I need to get rid of, let go of, to confess and turn from.

I want my prayers to be powerful and effective.

I want them to be a metal detector.