When You Pray Together

I came to see that the possibilities were limitless because God is without limits. Anything was possible because with God nothing is impossible!

For more than 30 years now, I’ve always had a prayer partner, or two, or three, or five or seven—depending on the particular time in my life. I’ve found that I can’t live without prayer support. I can’t be a good wife, mother, writer, speaker, or minister of God’s love and grace without it.

When We Agree I encourage everyone to find someone to pray with on a somewhat regular basis. I also remind others never to overlook or bypass the many golden opportunities to pray with people they see in the course of a day, even if it’s only briefly.

I’m not suggesting that we neglect our own personal prayer times with God. To the contrary, our time alone with the Lord is the most important time of all. It’s when we develop our relationship with Him. It’s when we grow. Our personal prayer time is the foundation for all other effective prayer.

When I used to play the violin, I found that I was a greater asset to the orchestra if I practiced on my own. The more I played alone, the better I was with the group. It’s the same way with prayer. The more time we spend alone with God, the more powerful our prayers will be when we pray with others.

But so often we just pray alone and don’t spend any time praying with others. We don’t recognize the power of two or more. Jesus promises that His presence will be in our midst in greater power when we join with one or more persons.

He said, “‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them'” (Matt. 18:20, NKJV). I can’t think of a stronger case for having prayer partners.

He also said, “‘If two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven'” (Matt. 18:19). That seems easy. All we have to do is just show up, join with one or more and pray. But wait. What is that other word? It says that we have to agree? That could be a problem, the agreement part, that is.

On what, exactly, are we supposed to agree? And how do we know if we are actually agreeing?

One of the most important things we need to agree on is to whom we are praying. Are we all praying to the one, true, almighty, holy, living God—the Creator of the universe? And are we praying in the name of His Son, Jesus? If we don’t agree on that, our prayers aren’t going to have enough power to make it beyond the ceiling.

Do we agree that we are filled with, and led by, the Holy Spirit, who enables us to pray, as we ought? If not, our prayers aren’t going to have enough substance to keep from evaporating into thin air.