At the beginning of every year, Christians all over the world send prayer requests to God asking Him to do one thing or the other for them. In Africa, many churches gather all the prayer requests on the first day of the year and fast and pray in order for God to answer these requests. It has also become a norm for every church to come up with prophetic words declaring what God will do for worshipers in the new year.
These requests are always geared towards satisfying the needs of man: “Lord! Give me a job,” “prosper me in 2025, “I want to get married this year,” “heal my diseases and infirmities,” etc. Pastors usually give worshipers the assurance that God will surely grant their requests. Some pastors collect money from the worshipers to fast-track answers to their prayer requests.
Unfortunately, many of them end the year without answers to their prayers. What could be the reason for unanswered prayers?
The challenge with most Christians is that we are convinced that Christianity is all about us and that God exists mainly to solve our problems. We are so much engrossed in our comfort to the extent that nothing in Christ matters except our welfare. We are not looking beyond ourselves and do not care about God’s will.
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While it is true that God is all-powerful and has no physical needs as we do, he still has a will He wants fulfilled. It is the desire of God the Father to have fellowship with all His children whom He created. It is because He wants to fulfill this desire that He sent Christ to come and die to reconcile all of us to Himself. It is the need of God for His knowledge to saturate every nook and cranny of this planet.
“The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). It is a promise that God will fulfill His original purpose of filling the earth with His glory. This means that God will bring people to the saving knowledge of Christ in every part of the earth. He is presently carrying out this project and has a need for laborers. “Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few’” (Mathew 9:37).
God has need for workers who will bring back His children who are separated from Him. Christianity is a relationship between humanity and divinity, it should not be parasitic but symbiotic. In 2025, let’s deny ourselves, carry our crosses and follow Him wherever He leads us in fulfillment of the mandate of the Great Commission. For us to achieve this, there must be a paradigm shift in our prayer requests. Instead of asking God to help us meet our needs, let us ask God to tell us what we should do for Him.
Instead of waiting for answers to prayer requests from January to December, let us take responsibility and ensure that everyone hears the Gospel of the Kingdom. When we ask God what He wants from us, He will surely direct our steps, teach us His ways, and send us as His workers. That should be our ultimate desire. Let’s endeavor to make this happen.
Oscar Amaechina is the president of Afri-Mission and Evangelism Network, Abuja, Nigeria. His calling is to take the gospel to where no one has neither preached nor heard about Jesus. He is the author of the book Mystery Of The Cross Revealed.
