PRAYER

BLOG POST     PRAYER

I used to believe that there were prayers that God did not answer. I no longer believe that.

Today it is my faith experience that God hears our prayers-- He commanded us to pray and promised to hear us. His answers are in my experience-- from the days

I used to pray for specific outcomes according, I now realize, to my own will.  I would say, “ Please, God, do this specific thing.

Make this turn out this way.

Make this person see things my way.

Let me get what I want.

Heal this person from this disease today.

Please don’t let this one die.

Or don’t let her die before I can say goodbye to her…”

This is how I would pray from age eleven for sure that I know of…I was I thought asking God to do things for me. I am not sure where I got that idea that prayer was asking God to do things for me, much as I might ask Santa Claus to bring me this specific doll or toy. But that is how I prayed for the vast majority of my life.

At those times God’s answers to my prayers ( my will) were "yes", "not now" and "no".  We forget sometimes that God is our Father.  Any good parent gets the opportunity to respond to our children’s requests ( demands? Orders? List of directives?) with the following possible answers:   "yes" to some requests, "no" to others and " not right now" to others.

In recent years I have come to understand there is another way to pray. I pray, “not my will , but Your be done.” 

I no longer pray for a specific outcome but rather, I pray for His will to be done; for me to know His will for me;  I pray to receive from Him the power to carry out His will for me.  In so praying, I am acknowledging that I do not have all the answers. I do not know what is best for anyone, not even—maybe especially not even—for myself.

When I pray for God’s will to be done in my life, I am expressing my faith and trust that He knows what is best and that He will keep His promise to me to work all things together for my good.

Chapter 11 of the Book of Hebrews ( in the New Testament of the Holy Bible) recounts the faith of many of our ancestors in the family of God. Abraham, for example, was tested by God. He was told to take Isaac, his son—his only son—born to him when he was 100 years old—and carry him into the desert to a mountain to sacrifice Isaac to God.

I always thought this was  a lot to ask of someone. As a parent I now know this is more than a lot to ask.

This is an almost unimaginable command from our Creator. But that is the point—not what is commanded, but Who is commanding this action be taken.

Abraham knew God, he trusted God—he had seen God face to face. He had bargained with God for his nephew Lot’s life and that of Lot’s family.  He had already experienced in that bargaining exercise that God is patient, and compassionate, and that God responds to the desires of our hearts. For Abraham’s sake God spared Lot and his daughters.  So Abraham knew God…he knew God cared about him and his desires. God had already demonstrated that in coming to Abraham and promising him a son—because God had a plan for Abraham’s life—and ours!—and He knew too the deep desire of Abraham to have a son of his own.

God promised him a son when Abraham was 99 years old. God delivered on that promise the following year.

Now, God was commanding Abraham to take that precious son – his only son—and kill him as a sacrifice to God!  Hebrews 11 says, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. He believed that God has his Abraham’s good in mind and that God would work things out for Abraham’s good.

God will provide the lamb, Abraham told Isaac. And… He did.

When I pray for His will, I am letting go of my expectations of when and how He will work things out. I am praying in faith. When I pray this way, His answers are always, "Yes."