Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer.

• Psalm 6:9

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

• Mark 11:22-25

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
“‘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.’”
Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

• Luke 11:1-8

I recently looked at a prayer request.  It reminded me of the classic prayer request.

“Please pray for someone, but I cannot tell you the name.  They are in the hospital, but I cannot say which one.  The person has a dread illness, but if I told you which one, you could figure out the name and that won’t do.”

Okay, so when you get one of those, you can pray that God heals someone, somewhere in the world.  That is one of those prayers that is almost a guarantee.  If you added, within the next month, even a better probability of getting a “yes” answer.

But in praying such broad stroke prayers, our chance of a “yes” is higher, but do we have a spiritual connection with that prayer?  We never hear back from the person that was healed.  We just have to take it by faith that they were healed.

The Lord’s Prayer is specific to us in parts, but it is still rather broad stroked.  It is really a template on how to pray.  The Luke version leaves out a little that the Matthew version states, in Matthew 6.

We pray that God’s will be done on earth and in heaven.  That is quite general, and since God is sovereign, this is a guaranteed positive response.

We pray for our daily bread.  For those who have faith and trust in the Lord, that request is going to be granted, at least in the respect of giving us what we need.  The one exception might seem to be when we die, but in less than a nanosecond, we will be in the presence of the Lord.  I doubt if we moan about the lost bread crumb.

And thinking of bread and heaven, manna has been called the bread of heaven.  I have often wondered about what will be on the menu in heaven.  Will we eat manna each day?

My wife has been gone for roughly two and a half years, and she hated gastronomical redundancy.  If we had ground beef one night, you could guarantee we would have something other than beef for two or three days.  That would pertain to pork or chicken also.  If there was an exception, she might have fish and then have shrimp the next day, thus seafood two days in a row.  If they only have manna in heaven, she has been cured of her need for gastronomical diversity.  And she is loving what is set before her.

But back to someone with some undisclosed disease, condition, malady, whatever.

When we pray for Aunt Jane, or is it Aunt Jayne?  We have something specific to request.  It is personal to us.  We know the person.  We know the pain, but we must rely on whether that is the will of God.  There is no guarantee that our particular Aunt Jane will be healed.  And while Jesus talks to His disciples about praying for such things, specifically demons coming out after much prayer, there is no part of the Lord’s prayer that mentions praying for the sick and the needy.  Intercessory prayer is mentioned in Scripture, but not in the template Jesus taught.

And one thing that we need to overcome quickly is that God needs to listen to our prayer because it is important.  Every heartfelt prayer by a believer is a sweet aroma before God, but not everything that we pray for is within God’s will.  Much of what we ask for is what we personally want, even when praying for Aunt Jane.  God promises our needs, not our wants.  And when we get upset that God is not listening…

First, God listens.  Secondly, God answers on His own timetable.  And third, and most importantly, God is God, and we are not.

Then again, looking at the Mark 11 Scripture, do we have something with a friend or brother that needs mending first?  And then the Luke 11 Scripture about going to God persistently.  Have we done the required “knee” time, although posture is not important?

So, if you need a guaranteed positive response, you may need to work on that heart muscle and know who is God.  But you can still pray that generic prayer that someone, somewhere will be cured of a disease of some kind within a month or so.  But somehow, after praying that prayer a few times, I do not find it very fulfilling.  I would rather pray for Aunt Jane, and then accept God’s answer, one way or the other.

And that attitude goes a long way in changing us as we pray.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.