Zatera Ul

The June/July 2006 issue of Seed magazine had a little blurb about a study on intercessory prayer, which found that heart surgery patients that were prayed for didn’t have any fewer complications, and that patients who knew for sure that they would be prayed for had a higher rate of complications than those that knew they might be prayed for. Few details given, but this article in the Harvard University Gazette describes the study more fully–the pray-ers were Protestants and Catholics, the praying time was of a set duration, and included a specific request for no complications.

I think the study is flawed both scientifically and theologically–prayers go to a sovereign God, who acts as he pleases, and not always in predictable, repeatable ways. I can think offhand of a couple examples of prayer in the Bible that went unanswered, or that got a flat-out No (Paul’s requests to remove his “thorn in the flesh”, for one). Some prayers were answered instantly, some weren’t. Some depended on how much faith the person had.

Anyway, this got me reading Intercessory Prayer, by Dutch Sheets, again. I’m about halfway through it, and there’s lots of good stuff. He goes into how intercessory prayer is part of the Christian’s role of representing Christ to the world, including his mediation between God and mankind and his authority over the earth, evil, and everything (the book explains it better than I can). Second, obedience in prayer is important–asking for the right thing at the right time, with the direction (and help)of the Holy Spirit. Later on, if I remember correctly, he gets into the question of why some requests are only granted after a long period of fervent and persistent prayers.