“How shall we know when our prayers are
answered? Hannah knew it by peace after
prayer. Paul knew it by receiving new
supply to bear the want [of relief]
of that he sought in prayer.”
DEPICTIONS give us an idea how things might have been. The depiction of Jesus praying before the
Father at Gethsemane in The Passion of
the Christ (2004) gives the impression he knew the Father’s answer
immediately, having prayed the cup of suffering might pass, and was immediately
at peace when he prayed, “Yet not my will but yours be done.” (Matthew 26:39) Even when the prayer was answered in the
negative — that he would be required to suffer and die — there was the capacity
of peace in Jesus.
Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661), a professor of humanity, and a
pastor of Anwoth in Scotland, was said always to be praying, preaching, visiting
the sick, catechising, studying, writing and reading. Always the pastor, he commends us to the complicity
of faith and prayer:
“Liberty and boldness of faith is also a sign
of an answered prayer.”
Of course, Rutherford’s deduction
here is that truth that Paul talks about in Philippians 4:6-7, to give everything
to God via prayers of praise and petition, that the peace of him that
transcends our understanding might be ours.
Anyone who prays in faith is left with that inexplicable assurance — all
is well, even when it isn’t. Something
shifts having prayed. And, of course,
prayer changes us. That’s why it’s
utterly good to pray. It changes not our
circumstances, but it fits us better to those very same circumstances.
So we may connect that experience
of a living and burgeoning faith that leads us into the broadening of capacity,
inducing confidence, simply because we have prayed.
Prayer, via this thought, is the
mind’s power because the heart has been undergirded.
“We are heard whenever we ask in faith; but let
faith reach no further than God’s will.”
To ask in faith is to know that we’ve
been heard. Faith suggests we know we’re
heard, for any doubting we’re heard fails the standard of faith in the act of
prayer. Faith is that beautiful sense of
belief that believing what God promises to do will be done.
But faith easily steps out of the
realm of God’s Presence by his will when we step past the bounds of
wisdom. So discernment — the working out
of faith by fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-16) — is crucial. We would be loath to consider a sense of
peace as God’s ‘okay’ to continue boundlessly without further need of
discerning by prayer.
***
Faith says we’re given peace having
prayed, whether our prayers are answered as we’d like them answered or not.
Pray by faith and the answer of
peace is ours.
Pray believing, and peace is a
possession no matter how the prayer is answered.
Prayer helps us along the path to
maturity — to accept the gift of peace for having simply prayed believing in
the wonder of prayer.
Now, to consider that Paul
experienced peace in the Spirit’s assurance that “My grace was sufficient for
you,” even as he languished with that “thorn of the flesh,” illustrates a
powerful principle:
Prayer changes our perspective,
whilst perspectives of reality remain unchanged.
That is the living unequivocal
power of God in real life. Available to
all, though only some take it.
© 2016 Steve Wickham.
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