Prayer Changes Things Outside of Us (Prayer Changes Things Pt. 1)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

During my junior year of college, I went with my church on a retreat. There isn’t much that I recall about that trip, but I do remember committing to spending one hour each day in prayer.

It felt like a foolish choice at the time. Between my academic obligations and my church responsibilities, I was barely treading water. I struggled to find enough time each day to sleep, let alone surrender a whole hour to prayer. Yet somehow God provided the time during that harrowing season of life. Since then, I’ve prayed for many things both great and small, and I’ve seen God move in both cases.

Prayer Changes Lives

A few months after I started praying more, a good friend of mine was attempting to transfer into the geology department at the University of Texas at Austin. He’d already been rejected twice before. And if he didn’t get accepted this time, he was going to transfer universities. So I told him, “Why don’t we pray about it?” And by the end of that week, my friend excitedly told me that he’d been accepted into the geology apartment with a scholarship!

And about a year ago, another friend of mine was on the verge of graduation. But one of the most important people in his life was not planning on being there to see it—his father. Their core values had diverged drastically when Donald Trump was elected president, and their tenuous relationship had become so strained that my friend struggled to even visit his parents. So for a whole year, I prayed for healing in their relationship. And on the eve of my friend’s PH D. defense, his father flew into town and even stayed to help him work on his project for a couple days afterward!

Conclusion

These stories may not be the most exciting. I haven’t yet seen mountains fling themselves into the ocean. But there’s good reason Jesus emphasized asking God for things in prayer so much. He said, “Ask, and you will receive” (Matthew 7:7). “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). And “will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night” (Luke 18:7)?

Jesus came to earth to connect mankind to the Father. And we do so by committing our cares to Him. Maturity in Christ is not asking God for less but entrusting Him with more. And I’m trying to learn how to do that one hour at a time.

“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”

(1 Peter 5:7)