Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“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.

• Mark 11:22-23

“Faith is the essential quality in the heart of any believer who desires to communicate effectively with God.  [The believer] must believe and stretch out the hands of faith to that which cannot be seen. Prayer is faith claiming and taking hold of its natural, immeasurable inheritance. Moreover, when faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live.  Faith does the impossible because it lets God undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God. How great – without qualification or limitation – is the power of faith!”

• Kobus Sandenbergh, The Power of Prayer (compiled from the works of E. M. Bounds)

In most promises regarding positive results from prayer, there is a promise based on you having no desire other than God and God’s will on this earth.  Then obviously, God will give you what you desire.

But here, there seems to be no condition.  But a recently retired sports analyst was famous for saying “not so fast.”  We must have faith.  We must not doubt.  And in the following verses, it says that if we have not forgiven someone, we need to do that so that God can forgive us.

There is a certain confusion about faith.  Do you have faith in God or do you have faith that your idea is so wonderful that God will agree to it?  Your idea may be that God is glorified when your prayer is accepted by God.  And maybe the doubt that creeps in is that you might not be asking for what is in God’s will.  If our faith is in God, we will know whether our request is in God’s will.  We will know the nature and attributes of God.  Thus, the combination of the conditions comes back to whether our request is in God’s will or not.

But I have heard one story of a “mountain” being moved by prayer.  Okay, it was prayer plus a small sign.  One of the speeches that I heard when I graduated high school was from the owner of a feed and seed store.  His daughter was the salutatorian of the class.  His store was in a valley, and he owned the steep hill behind the store.  He prayed for the mountain to be removed.  If the hill was removed, he could put in large grain silos and double his business.  But with his meager business, getting the money to do it was impossible.  But he stayed faithful to God, and the idea popped into his head to put up a sign, “Clean Fill Dirt – Free – You Dig It.”  It took twenty years, but one person after another needed dirt and they came by and removed the “mountain.”  God delivered.  In His promise, He never says how.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.