Todd Hiestand

Prayer: Being Wholly Dependent

July 27, 2006

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I was on the phone today with a church planter in Minnesota named Wes Wilmer. We were discussing the importance of prayer today and how it relates to our communities and how we have come to realize that we need to be much more prayerful in our leadership. In the midst of this conversation I realized that the basis of my desire for us to pray is found in the fact that I desire for our leadership (and our community) to become more and more aware and acknowledge that we are wholly dependent on God for not only the effectiveness of our church but our very lives as well.

I picked up Stan Grenz’s book, “A Cry for the Kingdom” again and read the following, this afternoon,

“Petitionary prayer therefore, is part of our struggle to admit our dependence. It is the struggle to overcome our human blindness and pride. it is the struggle to realize and acknowledge our deep need. And this acknowledgement is precisely what lays hold of and releases God’s resources….In short, prayer is a crying to God for help, based on awareness of dependence on God. It is the cry for the kingdom voiced by persons who realize that only the in breaking of God’s reign can remedy the challenging situations we face.”