Many People Pray – but does God hear?

According to a recent survey by ComRes for Tear Fund, reported in the Guardian, about 50% of adults in the UK said that they sometimes pray, and 20% of these pray regularly.

The top subjects prayed about are family (71%), thanking God (42%), praying for healing (40%) and for friends (40%). Global issues such as poverty or disasters, are lower down the ranking at 24%, according to the poll.

Looking at these statistics at first glance is very encouraging, but it raises a challenge for the church to keep faithful Christian prayer on its agenda.

Only half of those who pray said they believed God hears their prayers.

Some might have the view that prayer and connecting with God is outdated but the fact that so many people pray is testimony to the reality that we are all fundamentally religious. Many respond to the innate sense of “eternity in our hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We intuitively feel that a transcendent all-powerful God exists, and that we need to be in relationship with him.

But without the revelation that comes to us from God in the Bible, I believe we cannot have any confidence or clarity about who we are praying to, how to pray, and whether we have any expectation that he will hear.

In Scripture, God tells us that we can call him our Father. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, meaning we come consciously trusting that God will hear us because of his merit. Then we can 100% know that he hears and that in some good way, he will answer. We need to have the faith to believe that!

It is interesting to see the list of things that people of all faiths and none are praying for. The Bible also helps us think about our priorities. For example, Jesus teaches that we should seek first his kingdom, as we pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Yes, we should and will pray about our daily needs and concerns to our loving Father. But our emphasis will be on the kingdom of God coming in our hearts and across the world.

Graham Nicholls, Affinity Director