Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To

INTERVIEWS

Why Did You Write This Prayer, And How Did You Come Upon The Yes Prayer?

I wrote this book for the simple reason that I don’t believe there are really any other books out there which focus on prayers God always says yes to. There are thousands of books on prayer, itself, and there are a few that talk about why certain kinds of prayer work or don’t work, but there are none, to my knowledge, that really discuss specific prayers that God says yes to all the time, and then discuss what kind of impact saying those prayers will have on your life. I think that a book like this is really needed. After all, we all have the experience of saying prayers that don’t seem to work; prayers God says “no” to or “not now” to. With all the problems we face in life, I just think that it is a tremendous practical help to us to know which prayers God can always be relied upon to answer in the affirmative. As far as the Yes Prayer goes…after I finished the book I thought it might be useful for people to have one single prayer at their fingertips that would incorporate all ten prayers that I had discussed. People are so busy nowadays…I thought it might be very helpful to have the whole book summed up in one short, easy-to-remember prayer. So I thought very hard about it, prayed about it, and then composed what is now known as the “Yes Prayer.”

There Seems To Be Many Different Kinds Of Prayer—The Lord’s Prayer, The Prayers We Say And Read At Church, Etc. What Kind Of Prayers Do You Talk About In Your Book? Are They Different From The Ones We All Know? Are They Special?

There are so many different kinds of prayer: Prayers of praise; prayers of thanksgiving; prayers of repentance, etc. After all, prayer really is just communication with God, and there are so many different ways of communicating. My book focuses on what are called prayers of “petition.” That’s when we ask God to do something for us or to give us something. The difference between this book and others which discuss prayers of petition is that these petitions always work. If you ask God to make you win the lottery, for example, that’s certainly a petitionary prayer, but it’s not one that God is necessarily going to say yes to! But if you ask God to grant any of the prayers in this book—they will work. That’s what makes them so special. But the important thing to understand here is that these prayers don’t work because of any kind of special magic. They work because God has already promised us that he will grant them. Each prayer in this book—whether it’s a prayer for faith or courage or peace, etc.—is something that God has already told us in the Bible that he is willing to give us—if only we ask. All I’ve done is compile these prayers and explain—in practical terms—what will happen in our lives if we start to say them.

The Title Of Your Book Is Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To—And Yet You Start Your Book With One Of Your Own Prayers That God Said NO To. Why? (P. 4)

Yes, I wanted to start with a personal example of a prayer in my life that God said no to, because I think we all have experiences of that. We’ve all been “refused” by God at one time or another, and I wanted very much for this book to be realistic. This is not meant to be some kind of pie-in-the-sky book. God does say “no” to us an awful lot, and I wanted to be honest. So I talked about a time in my life many years ago when I was involved in politics. I was working as a press secretary in a political campaign, and if my candidate had won, I would have gotten a big job in government. Believe me when I tell you, I prayed very very hard to win that election. But of course the candidate I was working for lost. And I was not happy with God at all! But the truth is, looking back at that election now, I realize that if God had said yes to my prayer, it would have been the worst possible thing for me. I realize now that I was completely unsuited to the political life. I would have been miserable! Also, if I had gotten that job, I would never have gotten involved in the life of the church, and would have never written my two books. In short, I would not have been anywhere as happy or fulfilled as I am now. The point of this story is that God often gives us what we need and what is best for us, rather than what we want. He is not a God of instant gratification. And that’s very important for all of us to understand, if we ever want to make sense of why certain prayers are answered and certain prayers are not.

How Did You Do Research For This Book? I’ve Heard That You Actually Went Around The World Seeking The Guidance Of Great Spiritual Leaders. Is That True?

One of the most rewarding things about writing spiritual books and being involved in ministry work is that it gives you the opportunity to meet some of the holiest, godliest, and most brilliant people in the world. I’ve been so blessed to get to know a few of these wonderful spiritual leaders—to listen to them preach, to have one-on-one discussions with them and even to become friends with them. And I certainly took advantage of that opportunity when writing this book. I really knew I was going to need their help. Because prayer is a big subject. Thousands of books have been written about prayer, and millions of sermons preached about it. I’m not too proud to admit that I was very intimidated by the subject. I still am. That’s why I knew from the beginning that I was going to stop at nothing to consult with as many spiritual leaders and scholars and theologians as I possibly could. I’m not going to list the whole catalog of people I met with, but there were quite a few. Dick Eastman in Colorado is one of the greatest experts on prayer—he’s been a tremendous help. Dr. Dobson and all the folks at Focus on the Family have always been a great inspiration to me. I met with various Cardinals and theology professors at the Vatican—like Cardinal Martino (formerly) at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace—and I also traveled to the Holy Land a number of times to meet with scholars in Jerusalem. I visited some of the poorest places in the world too—like Honduras and the Dominican Republic and Africa—to see how the people there pray, and what God has done to sustain them in the midst of their great suffering. All in all, it’s been a great adventure, and I have been amazed at the great faith I have encountered in all parts of the world.

If I Am One Of Those People Who Doubts God’s Existence, And I Pray A Simple Prayer Like, God Show Me That You Really Exist…Is God Going To Answer Me? Or Do I Have To Believe In God Already For Any Of These Prayers To Work? (P. 17)

No, you do not have to believe in God for this prayer to work. God desires that all people come to believe in him and that all people are saved. There are plenty of folks out there who are good, sincere people, but who have trouble believing in God for different reasons. Maybe they were raised in an atheist or agnostic home. Maybe they have experienced a tremendous amount of suffering and are having difficulty believing in a God who really loves them. Who knows? But one thing is certain: God never gives up on anybody. He wants everyone to come to know him, and everyone to go to Heaven. In his letter, St. James says: “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” In other words, even if you have doubts about his existence, if you honestly and sincerely attempt to search for God, to seek him out, to communicate with him through prayer—to draw near to him—then God is going to respond in kind. He is going to draw near to you. He is going to begin to dispel your doubts, until you have none…until you are as sure of his existence as you are of your own. Remember, God is not some cosmic game-player. Yes he wants us to be able to believe in something we can’t see or touch—he wants us to have faith—but he doesn’t expect us to do the impossible. He wants to communicate with us. He wants to have a relationship with us. And that goes even for people who don’t have a strong faith yet.

You Say God Loves To Communicate And Yet, You And I Both Know, There Are A Lot Of People Who Pray And Say They Never Here Anything From God. Why Is That So? (P.13)

That happens for a few different reasons. First, there are some people out there who claim to be praying, but really aren’t. They’re just making demands of God. They’re not asking him to do anything. They’re telling him. Basically they’re attitude is not sincere. It’s not humble at all. They’re testing God. They want God to do something for them or give them something, and if they don’t get it, they won’t believe in him. Well, God does not respond well to pride and arrogance! And he won’t consent to be tested or treated like some trained dog. Next, there are a lot of people out there who are sincerely praying, but are praying for things that aren’t really good for them. There’s a very old saying that God gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want. And sometimes what we want is the last thing we need. Remember, God is always concerned above all in helping us to get to Heaven. All the requests we make of him are evaluated in light of that one primary objective. Sometimes we pray for things that we think are good for us, but really aren’t at all beneficial to our long-term spiritual welfare. We may pray for something like fame, or fortune, or a certain job…and we don’t realize that if God granted our request, it would be the worst possible thing for us. God sees the future—he knows what will help us to get to Heaven, and what won’t. That’s why we have to trust him. Finally, we sometimes pray for the right things, and are very sincere in our intentions, but still don’t hear God’s answers. In those cases, it’s usually not that God is failing to respond to us—it’s that we’re not listening! The world is so noisy, and all of us are so very busy. Sometimes, we just have to turn off the cell phone, turn off the TV, put away the day-planner, and say NO to the computer! We have to say No to all the distractions around us, and just get very quiet, so we can hear what God is saying. Sometimes it’s that simple.

I Love This Next Prayer That You List In The Book—Lord, Outdo Me In Generosity. Does He Really Do That—Does God Out-Give Us—Has That Been Your Experience? Why? (P. 47)

Everybody has heard the expression—Do not put the Lord to the test. God just won’t ever consent to be tested. But do you know that there is one place in the Bible where God actually does say that we can test him? In the book of Malachi God asks the Israelites to give him a tenth of what they earn, and then he says to them: “Test me in this…see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” God actually says it’s OK to test him when it comes to the subject of generosity. He promises us that when we are generous with our money and other material goods, he will be generous to us. In fact God will simply not be outdone in generosity. He makes this promise many times in scripture. I think the reason is that he wants so much for us to have a giving, generous attitude that he is even willing to indulge in a little game of diving “one-upsmanship” with us. When we are generous with our money, God doesn’t hesitate to help us with our own financial problems. And yes, I certainly have found that to be the case in my own life. When I was a little boy my mother used to tell me that if I gave away something I owned to someone else, God would give me two things in return. And more often than not, I’ve discovered that to be exactly true. There have been several times in my life when I’ve been in debt or low on cash or in some kind of financial difficulty, and then, to my amazement, found that if I reached into my pocket to help someone else in need, my own problems miraculously disappeared.

Which Prayer In This Book Was The Hardest For You To Learn? After All, These Prayers Don’t All Promise Easy Answers, Do They?

No the prayers in this book do not offer easy answers to life’s problems. This is a very realistic book. It’s not pie-in-the-sky. Yes it’s true that God will answer every single one of the ten prayers I discuss, but he’s not just going to wave a magic want and make your problems miraculously disappear. That’s not the way God usually works. What he is going to do is reach down from heaven and give you all the help you need to overcome life’s difficulties—he won’t necessarily eliminate the difficulties themselves.
I think the hardest prayer in this book for me is the one that asks God: please help get me through suffering. Suffering is a fact of life—and a very unpleasant fact. The worst kinds, the ones that involve death and tragedy and disease, are really like open wounds—painful, open wounds. And they have to be treated as such. When we go to the doctor to be treated for a laceration of some sort, the doctor doesn’t launch into a discussion about why we bleed, or why tissues tear, or how platelets clot. No; what he does is treat the wound. He cleans it and bandages it and begins the healing process. It’s the same way with God. If we’re suffering for any reason and we pray to God about it, very often he will not immediately tell us why we have to endure the suffering. Instead, he will act like a good doctor and simply help us to get through it. He’ll help us in our grieving, and help us to heal. He’ll give us hope. Still, it can be very hard when you’re in the midst of suffering, to utter those words, “God help me through this.” It’s very easy for us during those moments to feel sorry for ourselves, or to be upset with God—or even to doubt God’s existence. And yet, if we have the faith and the courage to say this prayer, there is no doubt in the world that God will give you all the help you need to overcome any kind of suffering you ever have to go through.