"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that
if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." (1 John 5:14)
What is the right way to pray?
And how can I know that God will give me what I pray for?
You can't, really.
I know that's probably not the answer you wanted to hear. But as we just read in the verse above from 1 John 5:14 God only gives us that which we ask of Him if it is "according to His will."
That verse is the sifter by which every other bible verse on prayer must first be poured through.
The opposite would be if we ask anything that is not according to God's will He does not hear us, or give it to us.
This truth must be settled in our hearts.
It doesn't matter how much you believe what you pray, or how loudly you claim it as yours. If it's not God's will, you're not getting it from Him.
Now that doesn't mean that God won't give you an answer when you pray. But the answers are going to typically be one of the following:
1. "No."
2. "Yes."
3. "Wait."
The fact is we rarely know what God's perfect will is when we ask Him for something.
You might pray and ask Him for a new job because you aren't making as much money as you feel you're worth and because you cant stand your boss because he's an arrogant narcissist. But God's will may actually be for you to stay in that job until you learn to be content with your wages and you learn to submit to the authority you have been placed under, no matter how painful it is.
God begins His life-long process of sanctification in us from the moment we are born again: setting us apart for holiness and for His purposes in our life. Sanctification is a refining fire of sorts. God is getting us ready for Heaven. Shaping us into new people who are not earth bound by our lust and love for the things in it. Like it or not, He is helping us loose our grasp on the temporary things of earth that do not satisfy us. They only bog us down and hold us back.
When I pray, I pray from a position of relationship: God is
my Father. He made me to be his son. And I ask my Father to help me, to heal
me, to provide for me, whatever I need. To fix situations. And then I
completely trust Him with the outcome.
For a sizeable portion of the modern Christian community I
think they believe if they just want it bad enough, ask for it hard enough, and
believe it strongly enough, that whatever they pray for the answer will always
be "yes." But God says that His thoughts are not our thoughts, and
our ways are not His ways. Sometimes we humans think that we know what God's
perfect will is. But we don't. Not very often anyway.
Most of the time I don't know exactly how I should pray. So
I'll usually say, "Father in Heaven I pray that Your good and perfect will
be done in this situation, in the name of Jesus. Amen." You are never
wrong when you pray that prayer.
Look at the Lord's Prayer by Jesus Himself. He didn't pray a
lot of specifics. That prayer lasts only a few seconds. And He covers all the
bases. That's a great model for how we should pray. But the part where He says,
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
(See Matthew 6:10) That pretty much covers everything and it's all about what
God's will is.
Even when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that the
cup of suffering from the Cross would be taken from Him, He
said; "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me;
nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." (See Luke 22:42)
I actually think it's a great blessing that when I pray
certain prayers and they don't get answered with a "yes." Because
then I know it wasn't God's will for that specific prayer to get answered in
the way I had hoped.
But think about it; God alone knows the end from the beginning, He knows all things, He created all things, He holds all things together by the word of his power, He knows the future, He has a perfect plan for humanity: for the world, for heaven, for eternity. So praise God that He doesn't give us everything we pray for. I know that if He gave me everything I've ever asked for my life would be a mess.
'Modern Christianity' has set many up to fail with this
promise of a 'Happy Little Christian Life' where we get everything that we want
and everything always goes smoothly. But that's a myth, not reality. In the
Bible, God never promised us that. A lot of people who are in the 'name and
claim it' camp like to quote the passage where Jesus says, "If you say to
this mountain be removed and cast into the sea it will be given you." But
how many people in the history of humanity since the days of Jesus have ever
spoken to a mountain and it was recorded as being plucked up and cast into the
sea? Not one that I know of.
My faith (trust) is not in my faith. I have no faith in my
ability to trust perfectly all of the time. All of my faith, all of my trust,
is in God and His absolute ability to do His own will.
So I can be confident and rest in Him whenever I pray.
I don't have to worry about if He's going to bless my sales, my finances, or my job. He might. He might not. His will might be for me to fail again because I need humbling, and because like most people, too often I think I can trust in my own self dependence.
Even great man of faith the Apostle Paul prayed and got a response that he probably did not expect.
"And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)
He's a Good Father and He knows what's best. His grace is sufficient us.
Trust in God.
—God is Love and Love Never Fails.
