To pray and God would answer

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Hannah is the first person I am introduced to in 1 Samuel. She is a woman in pain. There were so many other channels she could have chosen to deal with the bitterness that was in her soul. Yet she chose the only one that could resolve and take that bitterness away and so, each year she went to the temple to pray.

There was a quality to her prayer, a sincerity, that would suggest that she was lost in prayer because her thoughts were so centred on God. So much so that the priest thought she was drunk.

Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah did not. Every year Elkanah went from Ramah to worship and offer sacrifices to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord. Each time Elkanah offered his sacrifice, he would give one share of the meat to Peninnah and one share to each of her children. And even though he loved Hannah very much he would give her only one share, because[a] the Lord had kept her from having children. Peninnah, her rival, would torment and humiliate her, because the Lord had kept her childless. This went on year after year; whenever they went to the house of the Lord, Peninnah would upset Hannah so much that she would cry and refuse to eat anything. – 1 Samuel 1:2-7  GNT

Prayer is my access to God, it is how I place myself under His protection, it is a resource that never fails. There is no burden to heavy and there is no wound too deep that prayer cannot carry or heal. It is the only place Hannah had to go for comfort.

“Prayer bends the omnipotence of heaven to your desire. Prayer moves the hand that moves the world.” – Spurgeon

Hannah believed this.

Hannah made a solemn promise: “Lord Almighty, look at me, your servant! See my trouble and remember me! Don’t forget me! If you give me a son, I promise that I will dedicate him to you for his whole life and that he will never have his hair cut.” – 1 Samuel 1:11  GNT

It was a honest prayer, she called on no one else but God, because He was her protector.

My first impression was that this was a bargaining session. The sincerity of it changes my mind for I truly believe she knew that a divine intervention was needed to open her womb. It also was not a selfish prayer. She needed and wanted a son at home, so for her to give up what she wanted and then chose to dedicate him back to God – that was extreme.

I am encouraged not to be afraid to struggle in prayer. I am also encouraged to pray in specifics. I believe there is intimacy in it, knowing my place in my relationship with God and the confidence that He hears and will answer my prayer.

“We are seeing the necessary balance of two purposes of petitionary prayer – to put the world right (“thy kingdom come”) and to align our hearts with God (“thy will be done”). Neither of these should get the upper hand or our supplications will become either too shrill and frantic or too passive and defeatist. We must make our desires known – and also rest in his wisdom. These elements come back-to-back in the Lord’s Prayer, and we also see them together in Jesus’ own great prayer in Gethsemane.” – Timothy Keller

 

 

Praying for and against others

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I find myself naturally blessing people in the context of my everyday language. Sometimes my wife thinks there are those I should not be blessing and at those times I wonder if I am spreading too much around. When I read the way Boaz greets his workers I was encouraged to keep being liberal.

Some time later Boaz himself arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the workers. “The Lord be with you!” he said.

“The Lord bless you!” they answered. – Ruth 2:4  GNT

I think the exchange here was very kind and real. Let’s face it, when I think of all the other choices of words and expressions that could have been used, or in attitudes that could have been expressed, nothing comes close to this “prayer” for his employees.

I think both parties entered into this expression because they both understood that they depended on God for everything they had. Not only were they kind but in a way they were “praying” for each other.

These short prayers matter and as long as I do not let them degenerate to something I do as a formality, it will help me keep my conversation with God to be ongoing and to solicit mercy and grace from Him always.

Such would be the prayer style of Psalm 10.

You will listen, O Lord, to the prayers of the lowly;
    you will give them courage. – Psalm 10:17  GNT

Prayer, in itself, is a humbling act of faith. It can be called a spiritual prayer when it is a humble prayer. Whenever I ask from God it requires humility on my part.

“The lower the heart descends, the higher the prayer ascends.” – Thomas Watson

What a testimony to respond to someone who is asking how I have received the things I have received with this answer – they have been obtained by prayer. Desires are the soul and life of prayer. There is a kind of omnipotency in prayer as I consider and have an interest and am occupied with God’s omnipotency.

Satan hath three titles given in the Scriptures, setting forth his malignity against the church of God: a dragon, to note his malice; a serpent, to note his subtlety; and a lion, to note his strength. But none of all these can stand before prayer. The greatest malice of Haman sinks under the prayer of Esther; the deepest policy, the counsel of Ahithophel, withers before the prayer of David; the largest army, a host of a thousand Ethiopians, run away like cowards before the prayer of Asa. Edward Reynolds,

“Besides, even if God grants our prayer, he does not always respond to the exact form of our request but, seeming to hold us in suspense, he yet, in a marvelous manner, shows us our prayers have not been vain. This is what John’s words mean: “If we know that he hears us whenever we ask anything of him, we know that we have obtained the requests we asked of him” [I John 5:15]. This seems a diffuse superfluity of words, but the declaration is especially useful because God, even when he does not comply with our wishes, is still attentive and kindly to our prayers, so that hope relying upon his word will never disappoint us.”  – John Calvin

Where I pray my prayers

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Another chapter in Judges grabs my attention again. It is filled with violence and war but this time it is undergirded by God’s presence and it is holy war in a sense because it began by prayer.

All the people of Israel from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, as well as from the land of Gilead in the east, answered the call. They gathered in one body in the Lord‘s presence at Mizpah. – Judges 20:1  GNT

It did not end there – they prayed again  just to make sure they were doing what the Lord wanted done.

God’s Covenant Box was there at Bethel in those days, and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron, was in charge of it. The people asked the Lord, “Should we go out to fight our brothers the Benjaminites again, or should we give up?” The Lord answered, “Fight. Tomorrow I will give you victory over them.” – Judges 20:27-28  GNT

This is what Matthew Henry had to say about this passage:

“Before they only consulted God’s oracle, Who shall go up first? And, Shall we go up? But now they implored His favour, fasted and prayed, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings , to make an atonement for sin and an acknowledgment of their dependence upon God, and as an expression of their desire towards Him. We cannot expect the presence of God with us, unless we thus seek it in the way He has appointed. And when they were in this frame, and thus sought the Lord, then he not only ordered them to go up against the Benjamites the third time, but gave them a promise of victory: Tomorrow I will deliver them into thy hand.”

Compare this to what Jeremiah had to go through. He served a king who seemed to gravitate to counsel that was built around evil. This king reminds me to pray that God would keep me and if not, deliver me, from having such a hard heart, from having contempt of His Word and having no regard for His commandments.

Sin – its orgin and its cause – brings about an unchanged heart. Try as he could Zedekiah could and would not change. I pray that God would show me if I am being self-deceived and that He would renew my heart each and every day.

Such a prayer is found in the Psalms.

Listen to my words, O Lord,
    and hear my sighs.
Listen to my cry for help,
    my God and king!

I pray to you, O Lord;
    you hear my voice in the morning;
at sunrise I offer my prayer[b]
    and wait for your answer. – Psalm 5:1-3  GNT

There are so many ways to pray. All I really need is for God to listen.  I am assured that He does listen.

To God alone do I pray.

“This is the fittest time for [connecting] with God. An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening. While the dew is on the grass, let grace drop upon the soul.” – Spurgeon

I have a general habit of praying in the morning. It allows me to pray with a reflecting mind throughout the day. It allows me to receive instructions for the day, before I begin it in earnest. There is a confidence in me when I yield myself and the day to God.

“What is a slothful sinner to think of himself, when he reads, concerning the holy name of Jesus, that ‘in the morning, rising up a great while before the day, he went out and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed!’” – Horne

I think that confidence comes because I am not really thinking about myself, but am conscious on God and His presence.

“Very much of so-called prayer, both public and private, is not unto God. In order that a prayer should be really unto God, there must be a definite and conscious approach to God when we pray; we must have a definite and vivid realization that God is bending over us and listening as we pray.” – Torrey, How to Pray

There is an expectancy when I pray – I expect God to listen and then I wait for His answer.

 The idea behind direct is not “to aim” but “to order, to arrange.” “It is the word that is used for the laying in order of the wood and pieces of the victim upon the altar, and it is used also for the putting of the shewbread upon the table. It means just this: ‘I will arrange my prayer before thee,’ I will lay it out upon the altar in the morning, just as the priest lays out the morning sacrifice.” – Spurgeon

I feel that maybe more important is not my ability to have created a habit of prayer, but rather a spirit of prayer.

“Do we not miss very much of the sweetness and efficacy of prayer by a want of careful meditation before it, and of hopeful expectation after it? Let holy preparation link hands with patient expectation, and we shall have far larger answers to our prayers.” – Spurgeon

I like how this Psalm worded its statement on prayer – it sounds like a resolution, a determined choice. He would no sooner die than live without prayer.

“It is manifestly a mistake to pray at haphazard. There is too much random praying with us all. We do not return again and again to the same petition, pressing it home with all humility and reverence, and arguing the case, as Abraham did his for the cities of the plain.” – Meyer 

I come into the presence of God, not in a rush, but rather with some humility. My meditation is always “on” so that I never miss what God might be saying and leading me to hear. I enter into prayer with a sense of fervency. I want the work of the Holy Spirit to speack into my life, it is He who authors my prayer. May my preparation allow me to enter prayer with patient expectation.

“Ultimately, there is no such thing as unanswered prayer…. God, being a
good Father, tries to give us what we would have asked for if we knew everything he knew.” – J.I. Packer

 

 

Pray to a God who hears

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I was reading Judges 19 today. I read it slowly because I felt there was a deeper message there and I did not want to miss it. I will remember this story for some time and I am sure I will be dwelling on it and disturbed by it. In particular, it was all about a woman and she was unnamed. She was abused in more ways than one by the men in her life, especially her father who you could tell had created a culture of emotional abuse. There was no prayer mentioned in this chapter and yet I am compelled to pray for women, unnamed women, who have been abused emotionally and physically.

 “We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do
anything at all.” – Oswald Chambers

Prayer should have been included in this chapter somewhere.

Call to me, and I will answer you; I will tell you wonderful and marvelous things that you know nothing about. – Jeremiah 33:3 GNT

The words – call to me – opens my mind to the power of who God is and how I am invited to relate to Him through prayer.

I call to the Lord for help,
    and from his sacred hill[b] he answers me. – Psalm 3:4  GNT

I know silent prayers are heard. However when I am in my secret place of my prayer life, and when I pray out loud, they cover the noise that surrounds me that are not of God.  And then when God answers there is a sweetness to our relationship that makes my soul right and I do not fear the world for I joy in a prayer hearing God.

Though [something] is good, it can be loved in the right way or in the wrong way – in the right way, that is, when the proper order is kept, in the wrong way when that order is upset. – Augustine, City of God

 

Jeremiah’s prayer

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I love the fact that Jeremiah, even if confused, still obeyed the instructions he was given by God. He might have even questioned his own sanity at the moment if he had not already practiced discerning the voice of God. Why buy land when God was going to overthrow the country and exile the people? From here comes a prayer in response to hearing why God had him do what he did.

It is by faith that I come in prayer to God to fulfill His promises, no matter how bleak the situation.

By faith yes, and to do that I need to be obedient to what God has to say to me and what He asks of me – just like Jeremiah did.

It is with the promise, it is with the obedience, it is by faith, that Jeremiah could utter this prayer.

After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch, I prayed. – Jeremiah 32:16-23  GNT

In typical style, he starts with worship and acknowleges God as Sovereign.

“And what a prayer! What weight of matter, sublimity of expression, profound veneration, just conception, Divine unction, powerful pleading, and strength of faith! Historical, without flatness; condensed, without obscurity; confessing the greatest of crimes against the most righteous of Beings, without despairing of his mercy, or presuming on his goodness: a confession that, in fact, acknowledges that God’s justice should smite and destroy, had not his infinite goodness said, I will pardon and spare.” –  Clarke

I notice the declaration of who God is and what makes Him sovereign – He made the earth and the sky by His great power and might. There is nothing too difficult for Him.

 “Surely if God could make the heavens and the earth by his great power and by his stretched-out arm, He could easily bring it to pass that the Chaldeans should recede from the land, Israel again inhabit it, and the purchase and tenure of property be nhindered.” – Meyer

“The Puritans used to speak rather grandly about using argument in prayer*. By this they did not mean pressing God to fall in line with our own desires (“My will be done”); what they meant was telling God why what we have asked for seems to us to be for the best, in light of what we know God’s own goals to be (generating good, saving sinners, extending the kingdom and enriching the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and glorifying himself by so revealing his transcendent triune glory that his rational creatures give him glory by their thanks and praise).” – J.I. Packer