I can recall several times when I have asked someone if they
could pass me the butter at the dinner table or if someone could pass me a
blanket because I was cold. I can recall
at times when people have not done the things I have asked and it was frustrating. Thing is they are completely able to do what
I have asked, but the more proper request would be will you pass me the butter.
The person you are asking is capable of giving what you ask but you
should ask properly. I remember several
times the frustrations of doing just this and how we both knew what I meant by
the request. It always creates a good
laugh, at least sometimes. Over the past
week or so I have been reading in books and the Word, and listening to sermons
about prayer and I believe that the illustration above can relate to how we
prayer. When we pray we should know that
God is completely able and we should approach God knowing this and believing He
will hear us and answer. In Luke 11 the
disciples want to know how to prayer and Jesus tells them this is how you
should pray, “Father, hallowed be
your name, your kingdom come. Give
us each day our daily bread. Forgive
us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.” The words in bold are requests. We are requesting that God make Himself
known. We are asking will you, God, give
us the bread we need and forgive us where we fail. John Piper says in his book A Hunger for God that “Prayer is not
meant for the enhancement of our comfort but for the advancement of Christ’s
kingdom.” When we begin to align God’s
will with our will, aligning His desires with our desires we connect with God
and He moves. Prayer is the means of by
which God’s power is shown. Psalm 37:4
says it like this “Delight yourself
in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Delighting ourselves in God would mean
experiencing great pleasure and joy in His presence. It means that we commit ourselves to knowing
God, knowing His character because by knowing fully His character we can fully
delight ourselves in Him. I believe that
I am being awakened to the Gospel, that the gift of the Gospel is God Himself
(another idea from Piper I am learning).
I can honor God by committing myself to knowing everything about His
character. When we begin understanding
that everything is about Him, that God is for the advancement of His glory, we
can participate with God, through prayer, in making His glory known throughout
the nations. When we hunger for God we
are hungering for Him to make Himself known to us and to make Himself known
throughout the world. Praying with
fervency for God to make Himself known means praying for the places where the
Gospel has not been preached. This is
what I am being awakened to and learning day by day and I believe that God is
teaching me to depend solely on Himself.
Prayer is desperation for someone and that someone is God. I am slowly learning that apart from Christ,
I can do absolutely nothing (John 15:5).
I must fully depend upon God and not others, that ultimately He is the
one who feeds me. I so often would
rather run to another person or some other thing to give me comfort when God
wants me to come directly to him
with my burdens. I admit that I have not fully grasped the idea
of prayer but I am slowly learning and understanding that transformation is a
process and that we must continually fight and persevere.
-Many of these ideas have come from sermons by
David Platt in Birmingham, AL.
