Well, in 2004, there was a man named Matt Edmonds.

Now, Matt Edmonds is one of the greatest American sharpshooters of all time.

And so it's the 2004 Olympic Games, and he's getting ready to win another Olympic gold medal.

He is in the final round, and all he has to do is hit the target.

Doesn't have to hit a bullseye because he's given himself such a large lead.

And so as he's getting ready to take the final shot and celebrate gold, he lines up his feet.

He builds his base.

He steadies his aim, fires bullseye, except Matt wasn't celebrating.

And he watched as his name moved from first place down to eighth place.

Because in some weird mix-up, in some weird accident, what Matt did was he hit the bull's-eye,

but he hit the wrong target. And I wonder

how often we can do the same thing when it comes to prayer. Like have you ever thought, if prayer

really worked, why don't I do it more? If my prayers actually change things, why at times is it

my last resort rather than the first response? Why don't we pray more?

I think that's because at times we don't actually know what the purpose of prayer is. I think it's

really interesting when you look at the disciples' lives, Jesus' closest followers, the ones who were

with him 24-7, who had breakfast with him, lunch with him, ate dinner with

him. The same people who were in the boat as Jesus walked on the water to them. The same people

who were there when Jesus took just a few loaves of bread and a few fish and fed thousands of

people. The same disciples who watched Jesus open the eyes of a blind guy,

heal the sick, raise the dead, the one who saw Jesus do miracle after miracle. And when they

come to ask Jesus a question, it wasn't about any of that. The one question they asked Jesus

...