The benefits of waiting

I'm impatient - I want answers to my prayers NOW!

And often, when the answers don't come, I drop my requests.

I'm sure I miss out on good things when I do that.

Waiting is often good for me - and for you.  Waiting helps me sort out what is good - and what is not so good - in my prayer requests.  Waiting helps me grow as a believer.

The Bible is full of requests to wait for the Lord.

In Psalm 37:7, David writes: "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes."

I bet David had plenty of reasons to act against evil men.  But he had learned to wait for what God would do.

Perhaps he remembered the example of his predecessor Saul who was told by the prophet Samuel to wait at Gilgal for seven days before offering sacrifices to God (1 Samuel 10:8).   When Samuel did not arrive in seven days, Saul went ahead and carried out the sacrifices instead - and for that act, he eventually lost his kingdom.

I sympathize with Saul, but he was not authorized to make the sacrifices.  He acted on his own without God's permission.

Acting on our own usually isn't as costly.  But it can lead to wrong decisions where we do not receive the benefits God wishes to give us.

I am sure most of us are glad that some of the things we wanted years ago did not come our way.

But what about the good things we ask for - the things the Bible tells us God wants to give us?  How can we explain having to wait?

The best explanation is that God knows best when to answer our prayers.

In Daniel 9, the prophet Daniel grieved for his conquered home of Judah, praying and fasting.  The angel Gabriel came to him and predicted what would happen in the end times.

So Daniel did not receive the immediate answer he was hoping for.  Yet he was promised something far greater - the coming of Jesus and the unfolding of God's plan for mankind.

The angel told Daniel he was precious to God.  Why?  Because Daniel worshiped God and put him first in his life.  And he had a heart that was constantly crying out for his people.

Waiting and persisting in prayer deepens our spiritual lives.  We learn to trust even though we don't understand why our prayers aren't answered immediately the way we wish.

When the answer is "Yes", there is joy.  In his book No Easy Road,  Dick Eastman tells of a woman who prayed 32 years for her husband until he became a believer.  It's a story that has been repeated many times through history.

As we wait, trust, and continue praying, Christ is shaping us so that we become more like him.

Worship and prayer

Dick Eastman says that when we worship God we are enthroning God in our midst - and great things can happen.

In his book Intercessory Worship, he suggests that worship married to prayer can help transform families, neighbourhoods and nations.  He has concrete stories in nations around the world to back up his claims.

Eastman writes approvingly of John Piper's words: "Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church.  Worship is."

Piper went on to say that the ultimate goal of the church is to worship God.  Missions is a temporary necessity because of the fallen nature of man. But worshiping will go on forever.

Eastman's endorsement of Piper's words is significant.  He is head of Every Home for Christ which has a world-wide evangelistic outreach, distributing Christian material to homes  and launching local Bible studies.

But Eastman has always believed fervently in the power of prayer - writing many books on the subject.  His organization's headquarters has a prayer centre where staff members and others pray around the clock for God's work in all nations.  He himself has been praying daily for all nations for decades.

He notes that God is always present with us.  But there are occasions when he makes his presence felt in a particularly powerful way - something referred to as his "manifest presence".  Great revivals are examples of this as the Holy Spirit sweeps through throngs and gathers them into the kingdom of God.

Eastman defines worship as "any act, thought or expression of willful adoration that exalts and enthrones God, thereby defeating and dethroning Satan."

He points out the words in Psalm 22:3: "Yet you (God) are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel."  And Revelation 5:8-10 speaks of worshipers equipped with harps and bowls of prayers, praising Jesus for drawing in a global harvest of believers. 

For Eastman, this suggests worship and prayer working together to prepare the way for God to bring people into his kingdom.

Much of Eastman's book is taken up with exploring the principles of worship and prayer, illustrated with many examples of how this has worked out in reaching people through his own mission and others - from Argentina to Bhutan.  Barriers to the gospel have fallen and people have flocked to Christ.

In 2000, Every Home for Christ formed four fellowships of believers - house churches - every day around the world.  Following concentrated prayer, that total rose to 58 fellowships of believers a day 10 years later.

The great thing is that Eastman's group is working cooperatively with other mission organizations on coordinated prayer and outreach.

Their aim is to see more people worship God.

Your eyes can help you pray

Your eyes can help you pray.

This hit me once again while I was prayer walking with a friend near our church this last week.

It was so easy.  We saw a nearby business and prayed for prosperity for the owners and a good work atmosphere for the employees.  We prayed for their spiritual welfare, that someone would share the good news of Jesus Christ with them.

Passing a house for sale, we prayed that the owners would be able to sell it and for good family relations.  We saw a basketball net outside another house and prayed for the teenagers there - that God would protect them from evil.

Of course, it's even easier when you know the people in the houses you pass by.  You can pray for them specifically.  That same evening, another couple of prayer walkers walked their own neighbourhood nearby and stopped to pray for troubled families they knew.

When we finished our church prayer walk, our group leader urged us to keep on doing this in our own neighbourhoods.  I have taken her words to heart.

Of course, we can let our eyes help us pray wherever we are - at home, in the office, at school.  Yet there is something mutually encouraging in prayer walking with someone else.

Jesus promised that wherever two or three are gathered together in his name, he is there among them.  He goes further to say that if they agree in prayer, "my Father in heaven will do it for you" (Matthew 18:19).  Powerful stuff!

We also know that if we pray according to God's will, he will answer "yes" to our prayers (1 John 5:14-15).  That tells me that our prayers for our neighbours and our communities have a heavenly influence.  They can change things.

 Naturally, we can prayer walk on our own, too.  Our pastor prayer walked for a year around the community where he was starting our church.

Similarly, Mark Batterson, author of The Circle Maker, described how he prayer walked around Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where he was launching a new church.  The church wasn't going well until he read God's promise to Joshua that "I am giving you every square inch of the land that you set your foot on - just as I promised Moses".

After that first prayer walk, Batterson said, "My feet were sore, but my spirit soared . . . I couldn't wait to see the way God would honour that prayer."

He added that "God has been answering that three-hour prayer for the past fifteen years".  His church  has grown into one church with seven locations in metropolitan Washington.

We are not always able to see such visible results from our prayers.  But our prayers are never wasted - they are with God who will act on them at the right time (Revelation 5:8).

 

Thanking God in tough times

C. H. Spurgeon recommends mixing a dash of thanks to God with our prayers - even in tough times.

In his book The Power in Praising God, Spurgeon, a great British preacher in the 1800s, writes: "We are to pray about everything and every prayer should be blended with thanks."

He was talking about the apostle Paul's statement in Philippians 4:6: "In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God."

Spurgeon notes that Paul frequently mingles prayers with thanks for the people he is writing to.  It was natural for him to thank God for the people he is praying about.

How might I pray and praise at the same time about a problem that is troubling me? 

Here's a hypothetical example.  Suppose I have a serious disagreement with a friend.  How do I bring this before God?

I can call upon the Lord to bring peace between us and to resolve this difference.  At the same time, I can thank God for nurturing this friendship over years.  I can thank the Lord for the good times we have had in the past.  I can offer thanks for the many good qualities my friend has.

Among other things, Spurgeon suggests such steps as:

• Praising God for working things out for my good in the end even though I do not see it at the moment;
• Thanking the Lord for past blessings including giving me life everlasting in Jesus Christ;
• Offering thanks that God loves me and is using this present problem in love;
• Thanking him for the answer that is to come; and
• Praising God for past answers to prayer.

Such praying displays trust in God and his goodness, no matter what may happen.

Spurgeon says it brings benefits to us as we pray.  It gives us peace of mind and heart.  It stimulates prayer.  And it prepares us for blessing.

God looks at our hearts, Spurgeon says, and when he sees our trusting reliance on him, he blesses us.

What could be better than that?







 

Wanting God

Author and pastor David Platt said something that caught my attention: "Desire for God is the heart of prayer."

I turned that around in my mind wondering if that is true.  Isn't the heart of prayer voicing my needs?

Yes, needs are a prime reason I pray.  But when I'm facing a major problem, who do I want to solve my problem?  Who do I turn to?  If it's God, then clearly I am seeking him.

Still, there's a deeper meaning to Platt's comment.  There are clearly people in the Bible who sought God for the wonder and pleasure of simply being in God's presence.

In her book The Master is Calling, Lynne Hammond points out that in Exodus 33:11, Moses' aide Joshua would remain in the Tent of Meeting after his revered mentor had left.  God met Moses in these prayer sessions in the tent and Joshua obviously wanted this same personal relationship with God.

As I have mentioned before, Moses is a great example of prayer.  When God said he would not go with the Israelites any further, Moses objected saying that God's presence was vital for his people (Exodus 34:16).  And he asked for - and was granted - permission to see something of God's glory.

In a sermon on prayer, David Platt describes visiting a house church in an Asian country where it is illegal to worship God.  He says believers shared testimonies and then began praying, prostrating themselves on the ground and weeping.  For an hour, they called out things like: "Thank you God for knowing my name."  They were weeping for joy because God knew them personally.

The apostle Paul was constantly in prayer for people in the churches he visited.  He urged them to pray and give thanks.

As Hammond notes, we can see the source of his prayer power in Philippians 3:7-11.  He says everything is worthless for him "when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord".  His focus was on Jesus first.

For me, that may mean appearing to waste time in God's presence, not talking about my needs but only worshiping and listening to him as Moses and Joshua did.  The time for presenting my needs will follow later.

Gradually, I am beginning to experience what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 42:1: "As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God."