Seems that I’m only finding time to write once a month lately. Need to remedy that.
I’ve been thinking lately about people asking me to pray for them. I do enjoy helping share the burden and adding my petitions before the Father for others but it can be a bit daunting.
Don’t get me wrong – I believe that God hears and answers prayers. I just think that I (and lots of other people) hedge my bets and offer up “safe prayers”. You know, the kind that don’t really ask for much and if God doesn’t answer the way that we REALLY want, we are still “covered”.
I’ve got some more thoughts on this that I’ll share in other posts but I want to think about how why we like playing it “safe” when it comes to prayer. We take risks with lots of things – our health, our finances, our leisure, and don’t get me started about the way we drive. It’s as if we feel we need to give God an “out” – a way for Him to still be God and not answer our prayers (or at least not the way we THINK He should).
When we look at the biblical record, I don’t think we’ll find anyone who really offered a “safe” prayer (I’m sure that there may have been some but those don’t get remembered, do they?). I think we are called to be in a place in our relationship with God to truly ask for what we want (and our “wants” have become aligned with His will). James tells that that we do not have what we want before we either don’t ask or we ask for wrongly (James 4:2-3). We need to check our alignment with God before we pray.
I think we CAN pray boldly. It’s not about forcing God to do anything or demanding that He listen. It is all about praying in confidence that we, as children of God, will be heard. We may not always like or understand the answer but we will be heard.
Be well,
Steve
