Prayer Adventure! People try one of the ten prayers God always answers

Margaret Agard, author of the In His Footsteps memoirs about giving her life to God by giving her daily to-do list to God, challenged three people to pray one of the ten prayers God always answers. “God, help me to understand this person as you do.” When the divine answers, your heart is changed.

In His Footsteps Prayer Adventure

Wouldn’t life be a lot more joyful if you didn’t have any irritating, frustrating people in your life? In today’s broadcast you meet three people who took part in our first prayer adventure.

The assignment?  Think of a person you are irritated with or frustrated by right now.  Ask God to help you see or understand this person as He does. Join us as they share their results of the Prayer Adventure.  Next try it yourself.

Scroll for the transcript if you’d rather read than listen. Also useful links and related articles.

Margaret Agard:  Today you’re going to be hearing from a few people who tried a prayer adventure.  I know three prayers that God always answers and I ask them to try this one.  “Help me to see this person who irritates me the way you see him or her, God.”  I could hardly wait to find out what they have to report and it turns out, their experiences were all over the place.  Wait till you hear what they have to say.  It’s going to be fun.

Male Speaker:  Now, here’s this week’s bible question and answer brought to you by the amazing Bible Timeline.  Quickly see 6,000 years of bible and world history together on one color-coded wall poster.  Find out more about the amazing Bible Timeline or ask your own bible question at amazing bibletimeline.com.

Margaret Agard:  Here’s the bible question this week.  We have a cross hanging on our wall and it has the same letters I’ve seen on crosses all over the world many times before but what they stand for?  Above his head, they read INRI.  The INRI stands for the Latin “Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Iudaeorvm”.  I’m forgetting my high school Latin.  I’ll just give you a little bit of a clue here.  I actually did take Latin in high school because I thought I might go to medical school but it turned out I didn’t like Latin and I had no intention of going to medical school.  So you got all the Latin I know and that means “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”.

You what’s interesting is they used an “I”.  Actually there was no “J” in the English language until the 16th century and the first time a “J” was used in print was in 1634.  That’s a little aside there about Js.  Here’s another by the way, that was the charge to Sanhedrin or Jewish leaders took Jesus to Pontius Pilate for he claimed to be King of the Jews.  Some people believe that the fact that Pontius Pilate refused to change the inscription to read he said he was King of the Jews rather than he was King of the Jews implies Pilate believed Jesus was in fact the Messiah.  True or not, INRI stands for the Latin words for “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”.

Okay, now it’s time for this week’s adventure in growing spiritually.  You know, what’s the point of saying we’re trying to grow spiritually or were want to grow closer to Christ if nothing about our behavior and our attitudes is changing?

Okay, a little background on this prayer help me to this person who frustrates or irritates or hurts me as you see him or her, God.  It actually is from the New Testament.  You know, a lot of people, when you ask them what’s their favorite part of the bible, they’ll repeat what Christ said when asked what was the greatest commandments that’s under that law?  And they’ll say, love the Lord they God with all their heart and might, but they skip that part and just go right to this one.  Love your neighbour as yourself.  Well, that’s an Old Testament law.  That’s the old law.  That’s in Leviticus 19:18.  The new law was given by Christ to his disciples just before he died in John 13:34.  And in John 13:34, he said, “Love one another.  Then use this new commandment I give unto you.”  “Love one another.  As I have loved you, that ye also love one another” John 13.34.  Wow, good luck with that one.  That was always my attitude.  How in the world are we supposed to love people the way God loves them?

And then I realized I don’t have to do that on my own.  Okay, this is a little, you know how people who are just getting married, love to do that the Corinthians thing and charity is kind and long suffering and patient and things not of yourself and okay, I’m paraphrasing all the way through.  But after they get married, I always want to go up to them and say, “Great, now the long suffering starts” because nobody’s perfect.  So that means that person you just married is going to do things that irritate you just like you’re going to do things that irritate him or her and you need to just be willing to suffer.  Let it go and be patient and kind, and loving anyway.

But then in Ephesians, Paul also tells us what the fruits of the spirit are.  And guess what?  They’re almost exactly the same as his list of what charity is.  Here’s his background story.  In my book “In His Footsteps”, I’d love to share stories from that book with you.  I had a son who is 15 and he was the most obnoxious, irritating kid—which I’ve shared on here before—and so one day, I was praying and asking, what do I do about this?  And the answer I got was pray to ask to see him and understand him the way I do.  And I had an extraordinary experience through a magazine article in which I did see.  I mean he still could be obnoxious and irritating, but there was another side of him and that’s what I saw.  I thought you know what I’m going to ask some people to try that right now.  And I asked my neighbors in the hall were Sharon and Bryan and then I talked to a woman, Jennifer, she’s a young mom, has kids in grade school, still at home, to share with me their experiences of trying this prayer.  Here’s what happened.

We’re going to start with Sharon and before we bring Sharon on, I just want to give you the background to the story because Sharon just started telling the story assuming I already knew the background, which is true, so I’ll tell you the background.

Sharon has a garden spot right in front of her home.  It’s huge and then right next door, a great aunt owns the property, and the great aunt has always let Sharon and her husband put a garden there.  Well, Sharon and her husband are becoming more and more disabled, and so in order to get over to the second garden spot, Sharon’s husband has had to drive his four-wheeler over there and a couple of times, he drove it over the aunt’s lawn.  The aunt doesn’t live there and anyway, a few months ago or a month ago, the aunt said to Sharon, “I’m not going to let you use that garden spot anymore”.  Now, Sharon had heard that her aunt didn’t like them to drive on the four-wheeler so her husband had stopped driving the four-wheeler over there and just walked into the garden.  So she didn’t understand why her aunt was acting like that but she was pretty sure it had something to do with the lawn.

I said to Sharon when she told me this, “Well, do you really need that garden spot?  It seems like you got plenty out of your other garden spot.”  And she said, “No, I don’t need it.”  It’s actually a lot of work for us, but the idea of it that their aunt would decide they couldn’t use it anymore.  When I asked Sharon if she would pray this prayer about someone, she didn’t tell me who she’d chosen but this is what she had to say.

Sharon:  It was over the garden.  The (inaudible 0:08:10) the garden over there.

Margaret Agard:  Oh yes.

Sharon:  And I was highly upset.  So I’ve prayed about it and I couldn’t get over the urge to call her.

Margaret Agard:  Oh, that’s perfect.  That’s exactly how God works.  Okay.

Sharon:  Well, but in my mind, I was calling her to be hateful.  I was going to call her and thank her.  So her taking our garden from us would—I would thank her for doing that and it would…

Margaret Agard:  So you were going to be sarcastic?

Sharon:  Yes.  But it all turned around.

Margaret Agard:  What happened?

Sharon:  She said, well, Sharon, she said I prayed about it.  She said that I could not watch you and Dale and James and Olis struggle trying to keep that garden up and work in that but none of the four of you are able.  She said so I just won’t let you do it anymore.

Margaret Agard:  Oh, Sharon.  So it wasn’t about the grass at all.

Sharon:  No.  Not at all.  She said Dale could not get over there unless he rode the four-wheeler and she said then he couldn’t do nothing he had to supervise somebody else and she said I couldn’t watch it any longer.

Margaret Agard:  She had a good heart.

Sharon:  So we talked a long time and we hadn’t talked that much probably in 20 years.

Margaret Agard:  Oh Sharon, I’m so happy.  So you feel better now?

Sharon:  Oh, yes.

Margaret Agard:  How do you feel about her?

Sharon:  Fine.  No animosity.  Everything is good.  I feel much better.  Yes.

Margaret Agard:  Isn’t that just the way it is?  We think we know why people are doing something and we’re pretty upset and it turns out, that’s not why they were doing it at all.  But I’ll tell you what, if Sharon hadn’t prayed and then follow through on the thought she had to call under the influence of that prayer, she never would’ve found this out.  Wow.  Now, let’s listen in on what happened with Bryan.

It’s that prayer—tell me, did you see this person as God see him?  Would you be willing to do that?

Bryan:  I do that every day as a professional bus driver.  The children I have who are loud and irritating and (inaudible 0:11:16) so I have to look at them also from the standpoint of their parents not only just from the standpoint of God, but I have to eliminate myself as irritated bus driver and see them from another point of view.

Margaret Agard:  How does it work?

Bryan:  It works well forthem.  And I focus on down the road.  The rules have to be dealt with and children have to be dealt with but I have deal with…in moral ways from other people’s point of views and not from an angry point of view.  It lets us see what’s really the cause of the problem and how much are—but sometimes you can get one singled out just doing the same thing the five others are doing but that one bothers you more than the other five.

Margaret Agard:  Yes, that’s the one.

Bryan:  So you have to weigh it out and make sure it’s fair, to treat them all fair.

Margaret Agard:  Okay, so I still want you to try it.

Bryan:  Okay.

Margaret Agard:  Because you’re doing that yourself without God’s help.  Like you’re thinking it though and thinking this is how I need to think about it.  And so what my experience was and I’m thinking you’ll have the same one is you actually do suddenly see them in a different way.  And so I want you to pick about one they teach you the most and just say will you God help me to see this child?  You don’t have to even explain anything more as you see him or her.  Would you do that?

Bryan:  I would.

Margaret Agard:  Okay.  We’ve got Bryan’s commitment.  Now, let’s see if there was any change at all.

Bryan:  I should tell you every day.  I put that right up there.

Margaret Agard:  But so far what?

Bryan:  Well, do you have any questions in particular?

Margaret Agard:  Sometimes people have a result that they suddenly see a new facet of the person.  They start to actually there’s something they like about the person and some people not a thing.  More like an understanding of why they act the way they do and for some people no change at all.  So what happened?  Anything?

Bryan:  Okay, well, to me is I’m just looking that there might be something in the future.  I’m seeing a gray white hope that someday maybe only one (inaudible 0:13:33) and the first was like that there might some glory.  But that far, you know, does God see this particular person very much in the light or is it just—there are certain rules that I give about from my (inaudible 0:13:53) regarding the children.  I didn’t believe that God actually loves children.  You told them not to harm a child and not to despise (inaudible 0:14:06).

Margaret Agard:  True.

Bryan:  This particular person is a child and so they qualify a lot differently because have their life ahead of them.  Now, I haven’t done anything because in my profession, I couldn’t talk religion and probably the school system anyway.

Margaret Agard:  Well, that’s true.

Bryan:  So I’m just innocently (inaudible 0:14:31) I think we all knew that and I’m just wondering you know what the morals in the future.  I know they’re not the same as they are now and the child’s lack of education and discipline.

Margaret Agard:  Yes, you’re thought has been more of God isn’t finished with him yet.

Bryan:  More he hasn’t started yet.

Margaret Agard:  Maybe he hasn’t started…

Bryan:  But I’m being a lot more hopeful and full positive outlet.  There might be reasons that…who knows?

Margaret Agard:  Yes.

Bryan:  But these are a lot of people should normally would like to despise knowing that God has a plan.

Margaret Agard:  Well, there is a small shift in Bryan’s attitude from seeing this child as basically a waste of air and the shift on Bryan’s part was from just an irritating person to a child that God might have a plan for.  As I remember, when my son was 15 and I started praying, that prayer helped me to see this and man as you do heavenly Father, it was  a couple of weeks before I had a complete change of attitude towards him.  Bryan only had a few days. 

But I appreciate anyone who’s willing to take this on and try it and I would love to hear from you before we talked to the next person.  I’ll just put out there that if you want to try it and let me know about it, I would love to hear from you.  You can send me a letter at P.O. Box 173 Duck, West Virginia 25063 and again you’ll hear that address at the end or P.O. Box 173 Duck, West Virginia 25063.  Or go on the website, inhisfootsteps.com and leave a comment on the blog.

Okay, now we’re going to check in with out mom of young children, Jennifer.

Jennifer:  Yes, I was going to try it tonight because I emailed you and said I would.  There’s a person that I don’t know and then I struggle for our entire family to deal with her and so I was like oh, maybe should be praying about her to understand her.

Margaret Agard:  To understand her like God does.

Jennifer:  I’ve been thinking about her today and kind of like I haven’t had like a formal on-my-knees prayer, but I’ve been since I had said I would do it I’ve been bringing her to mind a lot today and trying to kind of think about it a little bit.

Margaret Agard:  Yes okay.

Jennifer:  Now, I don’t mind doing it.

Margaret Agard:  Alright.  When you’ve prayed this prayer before, what’s happened?

Jennifer:  Think about the person, I just see their side like a little voice I almost see at the back of my head and I’ll remember why I acted a certain way in some situation and realize that’s probably what’s influencing their behavior or even just remember something from their life.  You know what, they went through that so imagine how you would if you have been through that experience like that (inaudible 0:17:35) usually what happens in the past.  I’ve tried to…

Margaret Agard:  Well, that’s good.

Jennifer:  I can be more empathetic.  I have more empathy for them.  I don’t know if I’ve actually seen them as God sees them but I do seem to be more empathetic when I’m willing to kind of pray about it and see the other side.

Margaret Agard:  I always give God the credit for that.  After all, I did just pray and now I’m seeing it differently.  Let’s check back.  What actually happened?  Did Jen go ahead and pray?  Did you do that prayer?

Jennifer:  Yes.

Margaret Agard:  How did it go?

Jennifer:  I can’t say that I really feel like I’ve gotten an answer for the one person I was praying for and to be quite honest, well, I did the prayer.  Later or actually right before you called, in fact, I thought it was my friend calling back.  I had a call from a very good friend that moved to Arizona that we’ve been friends with for a long time, calling to say that her husband was thinking of divorcing her and she was asking us to fast and pray so my focus quite honestly got unfocused.  Because I’ve spent the last four days worrying about them because they’ve been really good.  We never like—totally out of the blue.  We’re like what?  They’re members of the church.  Their kids are older.  They have a like one still at home.  The rest are grown and I’m like what?  You guys have been married like 20-some years and everything seems hunky-dory.  Then trying to understand him a little bit I guess would be you know like what his motivation is.  Of course my brain immediately went to, oh, he’s met somebody else.  Before he didn’t meet anybody else, I know they always say they didn’t meet anybody else.  I didn’t tell her this but at the back of my head, I’m thinking, yeah, I’ve got 3 other friends (inaudible 0:19:29) told them the very same thing and then (inaudible 0:19:33) divorce was final or moved in with somebody.

Margaret Agard:  Yes, because they don’t want to say it.

Jennifer:  I don’t know if that’s it anymore because as I said, I’ve come to try to pray about—I was praying about that and I guess it goes along with the prayers you’re saying.  Michael’s like I really—Michael and him were very close.  Like I would he was a better friend to him than I was with the wife.  You know what I mean?  He’s like my husband’s best friend basically.  I guess that doesn’t seem like him and like I know it doesn’t but really?  What else could it be?  And maybe this was that result of that prayer because the only other thing I can think of is that she’s just like depressed because sometimes with men, weird things happen when they get like depressed like really clinical depression, you know?

Margaret Agard:  That’s right.

Jennifer:  Michael said that’s what I think it is.  Maybe that was the Lord trying to taught me because they actually had a teenage son that died in a car accident a couple years ago so maybe it had finally—and they’ve had some financial setbacks and you know?

Margaret Agard:  Yes.  Just piling up.

Jennifer:  Yes, so I’m like men react strangely to that I guess sometimes.  I don’t know.  She’s like if Michael doesn’t mind calling to see if she brings it up and he didn’t so then Michael didn’t bring it up.  You know what I mean.  They just chatted about other stuff.

Margaret Agard:  Right.  About Michael thinks he sounds—or he thinks he is depressed or…

Jennifer:  I mean that’s our best guess.  I mean, I really don’t know.  I hope it works out.  It’s very hard but I did say the prayer but I don’t know—you know how this with any prayer, you have to be like open to (inaudible 0:21:17) and I think even though I was saying that, my mind was more focused the whole time on this issue.

Margaret Agard:  Yes.

Jennifer:  I never felt like I got an answer about that person that I was praying about.  I still understand them but I don’t know if I’m in the right place to understand them right now.

Margaret Agard:  Right, but you felt like there was some understanding for…

Jennifer:  There was more understanding for my friend’s husband.  Like I said, immediately, my brain went to that (inaudible 0:21:41) but then as I discussed it more with Michael and fasted and prayed that—I mean we’re still very worried.  We didn’t get the greatest—I’m still not getting the very reassuring feeling (inaudible 0:21:56) and that frustrates me.

Margaret Agard:  Yes.

Jennifer:  I think he’s in a very dark place and he even said that to his wife.  He kind of telling this is not—because I guess he’s telling her that he is praying about it and that the message he’s getting is that they need to get a divorce and he’s like God would not be telling me that.  He’s like well, He is.  I don’t know if I’m very helpful to your radio show I don’t know.  I feel badly.

Margaret Agard:  No.  That answer is the answer.  So you don’t want to pretend to something other than what it is.  Okay.

Jennifer:  Yes, I haven’t.  Like I said, the one that I’ve been trying to figure out I’ve never felt like—I mean me logically, but isn’t always feel like answering the spirit can go well, you know, she didn’t have a very stable home life when she was growing up and she probably be this type of manipulative behavior with what she saw and so she would have to give her benefit of the doubt that this is a cycle she needs to break.  You’re far from perfect.  That’s just going to be her thing.  But that’s more like just me.  Like I can sit there and do all that—analyze.

Margaret Agard:  The answers I’ve got have usually been here’s a new facet to their personality you’re overlooking.  Like yes, all these other stuff is going on but here’s some redeeming qualities.

Jennifer:  That’s what I felt before like in the past and I’m kind of setting as an example but exactly, it’s like I really start to kind of like the person even they annoy me.

Margaret Agard:  Right.  Your heart changes.

Jennifer:  There’s at least a part of them that I like.

Margaret Agard:  Whew!  There was quite a bit of information there.  Alright, so what did we learn from three people trying this prayer?  With Sharon, she actually understood her great aunt better and realized her great aunt was doing what she was doing out of love rather than a desire to be hateful.  Sharon didn’t share in this conversation that she shared earlier was that she actually spent all day ignoring the thought that she should call that aunt.  Every time she thought she should call her, she’d say in heart, no, I’m not going to, until finally, the Lord made it so clear and wouldn’t let up that she did make the call.

And we learned from Bryan that sometimes that change is simply that God lets us get a bigger view of what’s going on in that person’s life and of God’s plan for that person so that Bryan was able to not use just his own heart and his own thoughts for seeing this young man, but was also able to use God’s idea and God’s view of what’s going on down here on the Earth and individual people’s lives.  We have 70 years for a reason and what a person is doing at 15 isn’t necessarily what they’re going to be doing at 70.

And then finally, we saw with Jennifer that God will increase our compassion and will help us understand people in another way although she has had the experience in the past of coming to like something about a person, her prayer for this particular person wasn’t completely focused because she was focused on another situation.  And to be fair, I had asked her to pray that prayer.  It wasn’t coming to her from God.  She had another prayer to pray that day.

There you have it, three people with three different results to the same prayer, but one overarching result which is that they were all happier and less frustrated and less irritated.  That’s what it comes to.  We, by following the Gospel of Jesus Christ, end up happier.  And really which is happier for you: to be dealing with people who irritate and frustrate you or to be dealing with people who you either like or have some compassion and empathy for and can see God in?

I’m going to bring out a point here that the Sermon on the Mount is not talking about different people.  It’s talking about one person going through the stages of spiritual growth and one of those spiritual growth is to begin to see God and everyone and everything around you.  And that’s what this prayer helps us to do.  “Help me to see this person as You see or understand him or her, God, and help me to love him the way You do”.

The next two prayers I’m going to share with you on this adventure and joy have to do with the next step, which is becoming a peacemaker.  Here’s the two prayers and then in the upcoming show, I’ll share with you how I learned them.  But what I’m going to ask you to do right now is to consider trying them and then letting me know how all they work for you.

Okay, so the first prayer you could try is “Help me to see this person as You see him or her, God”.  And the next two prayers are when you’re in the middle of a frustrating experience.  Let’s say you have just had the same argument you’ve been having with your spouse for the last 20 years and you’re upset.  Okay, take a minute by yourself and just ask God in prayer this question: Is it me?  Is it something I’m doing?  Now, I’m pretty sure you’re going to be sure the answer is now, but you might be surprised.

Then here’s the other prayer, let’s say you’re in the middle of a conversation with someone and it’s going down the same rut.  It’s always gone down and you’ve tried all these different ways of responding and you’re stuck.  You honestly don’t know what to say and so you silently ask in your heart: What can I do now, God?  What else could I say?

Okay, those are the three prayers—three of the prayers, there’s actually more that I know God always answers.  Those two prayers will help you become the peacemaker you’re intended to be.  If you’ll do those things, let me know how they work for you.  I’d love to hear it.  You can either send me a letter at P.O. Box 52 Fort McCoy, FL 32134 or go on to the website, https://inhisfootsteps.com and leave a comment there.

More Information

Margaret’s Books on Giving Her Life To God

This Week’s Bible Question: What Does INRI Mean on the Cross Over Jesus Head?