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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

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