19 June 2014 - cause for rejoicing

19 June 2014 - cause for rejoicing


Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

He does not ask us to pray to tell him things he doesn't know.  Our prayers can therefore be simple and even repetitious provided that they come from the heart.  It isn't about our words imparting knowledge to the All-Knowing One.  Instead, we pray to fix certain holy desires in our hearts.  As we pray, these desires are elevated and given agency.  They are allowed to be genuine causes of the effects of our prayer.

This is why is it is important to have a model of prayer.  Our hearts are going to be used to unleash blessings on the world.  God can do the most through us when the desires we express match his plans for the world.  We start, therefore, by putting him first, his name, his Kingdom, and his will.  When we fail to do this it sometimes seems as though our prayers go unanswered.  James tells us, "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures" (cf. Jam. 4:3).  Yet God always answers.  Jesus promises us, "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (cf. Joh. 14:13).  He is too generous to give us that for which we ask.  He gives us more than we can ask or imagine (cf. Eph. 3:20).  Our Father is the one who gives good gifts to those who ask him (cf. Mat. 7:11).  He does not give us scorpions or snakes even if we ask for them.  Instead he gives us what we really need.  "How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" (cf. Luk. 11:13).

Interestingly, this does not mean that our mind is always engaged.  Above, we discussed our motives and our desires.  This has more to do with engaging our will than our mind.  These are the situations of praying in the Spirit and they should reassure us.  We don't have to know how to pray exactly as we ought.  We don't have to have God's will for the world perfectly mapped in our intellects.  Scripture tells us that we don't in fact know how we ought to pray.  But at such times "the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans" (cf. Rom. 8:26).  Prayer in tongues is a specific instance of this.  Paul tells us "if I pray in a tongue, my spirit is at prayer but my mind is unproductive" (cf. 1 Cor. 14:14).  It is precisely because it is about opening ourselves to the Spirit in us, and not about our intellect, that we can follow Paul's exhortation to "Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication" (cf. Eph. 6:18).

It is because they know this that God is able to use Elijah and Elisha so powerfully.  Fire from heaven, raising the dead, bringing down nobles, and anointing kings, are all wrought by God through these prophets.  Their intellects can't even guess at such marvelous deeds, but their openness to the Spirit makes all things possible.

The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth.

There are no mountains the LORD cannot move.  He tells us our faith can move mountains.  Our prayer can share in his own strength.  We should be like Elisha and fear no one.  No one should be able to intimidate our will when we stand in the strength of the king.

The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice;
let the many isles be glad.
Clouds and darkness are round about him,
justice and judgment are the foundation of his throne.