We have no Scriptural reason to hope concerning prayer that we can work out a quick-fix deal with God to have our needs met in a way which disregards his redemptive plan for us to connect to the resources he has given for the flow of his provisions to establish us in health (including holiness) and happiness.
With that understood, we can still have this confidence concerning prayer:
- God knows we are fallen creatures living in a troubled world and are sometimes victims of overwhelming adversity and evil; also, of our own stupidity and weaknesses.
- He is a wise, compassionate Father watching over us to protect and support us during our stumbling steps to growth.
- We have opportunity, even after our failures, to pursue God for intervention (to reverse the consequences of our bonehead choices and actions) through praying that is persistent (supplication) and passionate, even to include fasting.
Several years ago, I was engaged in the work that God had given me to do in the place where he had put me to do it. It was a poor, dangerous community, so I was highly motivated to be faithful each day to connect to his resources for my support in every way I knew, especially to take time each morning for extended quiet time in order to have the support of his presence for wisdom and compassion.
After pumping gas one afternoon at a convenience store, and before going inside to find a restroom, I pressed the trunk release button on my key remote instead of the door lock. Coming back out, I found that my high dollar laptop was missing from my car. A customer told me he saw someone take the computer and identified his appearance and the vehicle he was driving. I filed a police report and posted a sign offering a reward, but the store clerk said to consider it gone, that it would quickly be sold on the street for drug money. Of course I was devastated and began to pray with tears and pleading for God to bring conviction and repentance to someone’s heart to return my laptop, also for him to look beyond my stupidity to see my critical need for the stored information on the laptop.
One evening about two weeks later while waiting with wife, Carole, to consult with her doctor concerning a sudden occurrence of heart palpitations, the Holy Spirit whispered to my attention forgotten information from my studies that Carole was deficient in magnesium and calcium. Also, that same evening as we waited for the doctor, my cell phone rang. A mother was calling to say she had seen my posted sign, also found an expensive laptop in her daughter’s bedroom, and wanted to ask if I was the owner and where she could meet me to return it.
Don Loy Whisnant/Journey Notes 8G28
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