{"id":1465,"date":"2023-01-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/2023\/01\/13\/prayer-is-relational\/"},"modified":"2023-01-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T07:00:00","slug":"prayer-is-relational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/2023\/01\/13\/prayer-is-relational\/","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s Why Prayer Isn&#8217;t About Getting What We Want"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By now, if you haven\u2019t heard of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Damar_Hamlin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Damar Hamlin<\/a>, now is the time to stop what you are doing and do a little Google search of his name. God miraculously saved this young man\u2019s life and responded mercifully to the power of prayer that spread throughout the nation like wildfire.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Damar Hamlin is a football safety for the Buffalo Bills. During a Monday Night Football game on January 2, 2023 against the Cincinnati Bengals, Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and he was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. The confusion, emotion, urgency, and helplessness led these great athletes to turn to our Lord, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\/bills-gather-team-prayer-field-following-damar-hamlin-injury\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">kneeling together in prayer<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Video circulated online of Bengals fans reciting the Lord\u2019s Prayer in the stands while others held prayer vigils outside The University of Cincinnati Medical Center. This tragic event may have ignited one of the biggest social media prayer chains in recent history.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Praise God for answering our prayers. Hamlin has made a miraculous recovery and just over a week after this terrifying ordeal, he has been discharged from the hospital and can continue his rehab at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although, even Hamlin himself hinted that perhaps this ordeal was less about him and more about the power of God with a tweet saying, <em>\u201cNothing I Want More Than To Be Running Out That Tunnel With My Brothers. God Using Me In A Different Way Today.\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">GameDay.. Nothing I Want More Than To Be Running Out That Tunnel With My Brothers. God Using Me In A Different Way Today. Tell Someone You Love Them Today!  \ud83e\udef6\ud83c\udffe3\ufe0f\u20e3 let\u2019s go <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BuffaloBills?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@BuffaloBills<\/a> \u2764\ufe0f\ud83d\udc99 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XgA7S3Bpvn\">pic.twitter.com\/XgA7S3Bpvn<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \ud835\udc03\ud835\udc1a\ud835\udc26\ud835\udc1a\ud835\udc2b \ud835\udc07\ud835\udc1a\ud835\udc26\ud835\udc25\ud835\udc22\ud835\udc27 (@HamlinIsland) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HamlinIsland\/status\/1612121283868909568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 8, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Shortly after his road to recovery, \u201c<em>Prayer Works!<\/em>\u201d headlines began to pop up everywhere online, in hashtags and video reels.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can I share something with you? I\u2019ve never liked the phrase, \u201cPrayer works\u201d. When I hear that phrase, I picture myself playing the claw machine at the arcade. It\u2019s a game we play with a triad of trepidation, anxiety and a little bit of hope. When we center that claw over the prize and hit the button to lower the claw, we can exclaim, \u201cIt worked! It worked!\u201d, as the prize we wanted falls into our hands.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Mark+11&amp;version=NIV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mark 11:24<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;NIV<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While I\u2019m elated that \u201cprayer worked\u201d and that God has saved Hamlin\u2019s life amid the excitement and resuscitation of prayer across people\u2019s hearts and lips, I couldn\u2019t help but feel that the power of prayer was becoming sensationalized to something that is more transactional in nature rather than relational.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;What if God did not heal Hamlin? Does that mean that our proverbial claw machine is broken? Defunct? Out of order? In a matter of days, we could have been flooded with the hashtags: <em>#prayerdoesntwork, #idontwantyourprayers, #prayersarentenough, or #godsnotreal<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t believe that God is in the business of making sure that we \u201cget what we prayed for\u201d, nor do I believe that Hamlin\u2019s healing and recovery depends on our prayers. Our God is too big to be dependent on that.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What God has shown me over the years is that <a href=\"https:\/\/star991.com\/prayerwall\/\">prayer<\/a> is less about the answers and more about the most precious and treasured opportunity for me to talk with my Father. He\u2019s no longer a distant God from whom I am separated, but the Savior of the world with whom I am intimately connected through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.&nbsp; That has moved me not only to a place of blessed hope, but to the chief cornerstone where my confidence resides. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=1+john+5&amp;version=NIV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1 John 5:14<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;NIV<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year, can we move from a place of praying and hoping for good gifts from our Father (which He loves to give) to celebrating that HE IS the good&nbsp; and perfect gift. He created a way for us to present our requests before Him while allowing us to approach Him and converse with Him with an unbreakable and intimate bond, in which He deserves all the glory.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let us pray.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Devin Almonte&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Host of Encouraging STAR Stories, STAR 99.1<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Watch Kristen and Luke discuss Damar Hamlin&#8217;s tragic injury and the power of prayer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/qYsTpf060yM\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prayer is less about the answers and more about the most precious and treasured opportunity for me to talk with my Father.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[72,131,30],"class_list":["post-1465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spiritual-growth","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-prayer"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-13 21:00:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}