Confidence in Prayer
- Justin Ray
- Feb 20, 2023
- 4 min read
I John 5:14-15
Have you ever seen a child go to the altar to pray, and as you watched them, you noticed that they were peeking over their arms to see if anyone was watching? It is hard not to smile at them. While they may not yet understand the concept of what they are doing, someone has taught that child that they need to go to the altar to pray! Isn't it interesting then, that as that child gets older, we have a tendency to get judgmental when they go to the altar to pray. Comments begin being made about it "only being for a show" or "I wonder what they have done?" There was such a boy in my former church and when the truth came out, he was praying for his mother's salvation. He was doing what we all should have been doing.
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
I John 5:14-15
I believe I have said this before, but when I was growing up, I really enjoyed studying the different mythologies. One thing that always struck me is just how blind and hopeless their worship was. They offered sacrifices and prayed to a god that they hoped would hear them. When the deity in the story did hear a prayer, it seemed like the exception instead of the rule. John tells us that our situation as Christians is very different.
The Greek word translated "confidence" can mean exactly that, we can approach the throne of God and trust that God both hears our prayers and will answer them. The word can also mean that we can speak plainly with God. We do not have to worry about our word use, or are we praying the correct formula, because God already knows our hearts. While we should be reverential, we can also be honest. That is what many of the Psalms are, honest prayers of how the psalmist was feeling.
While we have the ability to ask God for whatever we want, that does not mean we get whatever we want. John tells us "If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us". This flies in the face of the so called "prosperity gospel" that tells us to "name it and claim it", or to "speak it into existence". God gives us what He wants us to have. When we pray, we are not persuading God to see things our way, but rather God changes us to see things His way. When this happens, and we pray that His will be done, He hears and answers. This is why Jesus taught us to pray, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).
I did not take to pastoring well. Everything about it is contrary to my natural will. In the first few years of pastoring, I begged God to withdraw His calling on my life. I knew that as long as God's calling to pastor was on my life, I had to do that to be obedient to Him, so I begged Him to rescind His calling. He did not, and for that I am now grateful. Had He given me whatever I asked for, I would not know the joy of pastoring my current church. I love the people here dearly and I would have missed out because I was not seeking God's will. I did not know what He had planned for me.
As a child, I can remember asking my parents for things and when they said "no", my little mind told me it was because they didn't love me. I knew that was not true, but I thought I really wanted and needed what I had asked for. I could not understand how they could tell me know. Looking back, I never did without anything that I needed. My parents always provided for my needs because they loved me. There were some things I wanted that I did without. Some of those things I only thought I wanted. Had I received them, they would have lost their luster. When we get upset with God for not "answering our prayers", we are applying this same erroneous thinking to Him. There is never anything that we need that He withholds from us. God sees the big picture. He knows not only what we need in the present, but also what we need to develop us into faithful children who glorify Him with our lives. After all, that is what we were created for.
Father, thank You for not giving us everything we ask for. We would get so caught up in this world that we would never think about Heaven and being in Your presence. As Laura Story wrote, "What if my greatest disappointments, Or the aching of this life, Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy, And what if trials of this life, The rain, the storms, the hardest nights, Are Your mercies in disguise?"
Blessings by Laura Story
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