Prayer is divine dialogue, mostly carried out behind the curtains. Covid-19 altered many things, including the privacy with which prayer is designed to be carried out. Rather than the dialogue between God and man done behind the scene, we see a lot of ostentatious prayers going on these days. The effectiveness of prayer is not tied to the frenzy behind it, but in our ability to engage in proper reasoning. Abraham understood the importance of reasoning with God. His intercession was on the heel of the information that he got. God had told him of the impending judgment on Sodom. On hearing that, he began to reason with God, wondering if the city would not be spared on account of 50 righteous souls. God assured him that if there were as many as 50 righteous in the land, it would be spared. He pressed harder, moving the figure to 40, then 30, then 20. On each round of reasoning or negotiation God obliged him. Finally, he set the cut off mark at 10.

“Prayer is divine dialogue, mostly carried out behind the curtains.”

In reasoning with God Abraham held on to God’s justice. His argument was that it would be contrary to natural justice to destroy the righteous with the wicked, and that by God who is known as the Judge of the whole earth. Even though Sodom was eventually destroyed, God saved Lot on account of the prayers of Abraham. A critical lesson here is that mature prayer is not all about self; it is a major tool we employ to seek the good of others. Finally, a good prayer provides something for God to remember.