Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Isaiah chapter 38 verses 4 and 5

Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah.

Go and say to Hezakiah,

Thus says the Lord, the God of David your Father,

I have heard your prayer. I have seen your prayer I have seen your tears behold I will add 15 years to your life

What a testimony to the your life.

What a testimony to the power and potential of prayer to God.

So that the context here, Hezekiah, the king is sick.

Verse 1 of chapter 38 says he's at the point of death and so he prays for God to save him

from death and give him more life and God comes to Him and says I've heard your prayer

I've seen your tears so behold I will add 15 years to your life

So there's a lot of things we could discuss here based on Isaiah chapter 38 but one of the things that's crystal clear is that God does respond to our prayers, that God hears our prayers

and he answers our prayers, like prayer really matters. Now the struggle is there are some times when we might pray like this I think

about times in my life and friends and my family members lives where we've prayed for healing, we've prayed for more life for people,

and God has not given it.

We've prayed with tears for more life and God has not given more life and so there are

without question circumstances I would say oftentimes circumstances where we might pray things and God might not

answer in this way but the whole picture we see all over scripture is that we

Should pray must pray with confidence, one, that God is always

hearing us, and two, with confidence that our prayers do matter, that God does respond to our prayers, that our prayers affect

things in this world and our life and the lives of those around us.

...