Amen, amen, I say to you,
whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.
Until now you have not asked anything in my name;
ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
Though it is a gift, Christian joy isn't quite automatic. We are meant to ask and keep asking, to seek and keep seeking, to knock and keep knocking at the door of prayer (see Matthew 7:7), which is the door to the heart of the Father. We are meant to believe that the Father desires to give good gifts to his children (see Luke 11:13), that he desires to give justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night (see Luke 18:7).
In response what Jesus said and what we know about the Father's heart isn't our own response of prayer paltry and timid? We are like Ahaz who, having been told to ask, responded saying, "I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test." Many of us have our own human system of prayer that isn't very much like the one enjoined on us by Jesus. We have a wish list, and we send them off as though we were writing to a politician, with little hope of an answer.
True prayer is meant to be powerful. The reason we are often reluctant to embrace confidence in such prayer is because of past perceived disappointment.
Perhaps we are like the man by the pool of Bethesda who been trying for a healing so long that he no longer could no longer hope, no longer even say aloud that he wanted to be healed. Such disappointment only grows more difficult with time. But perhaps our situation is more like his than we realized. Perhaps our past prayers were not made with the faith in the name of Jesus who actually had the power to grant them. We are meant to invoke the name of Jesus in our prayer in such a way that we really believe that all things are possible to him, that no request is beyond him, and that if what we ask if for our good he will give it to us, even if mountains must be moved for him to do so. This is what Jesus meant when he said to ask in his name, not merely that we should use it as a formula, nor even simply an intellectual direction, but from a posture of relationship and faith.
Many of us believe that we should not pray for for ourselves. We are willing to ask for others, because we know we should. But we somehow perceive prayers for ourselves as selfish. Some prayers certainly are, but many are not. We are meant to love others as we love ourselves, and if we are unwilling to have that basis of legitimate self care then our love for others is going to be hollow as well. In addition, there may even be deeper reasons for this tendency. We might have a subconscious belief that we are somehow unique, that God may care about others, but not ourselves. If this is true, let us hear Jesus telling us to ask so that our joy may be complete. Let us believe him when he tells us that the Father himself loves us, each, individually.
Another reason our prayers have become timid is because we tend to ask a few times and then give up. We insist on our own timelines in judging the effectiveness of our prayers. Perhaps we start quite zealous, sensing that our desire is pleasing to God and that he may well want to grant it, but then don't receive it that day, or that week, or that year. How quickly does our zeal flag in such cases? God's timing is never our own, and seldom what we would prefer at first. It is usually only evident to us in hindsight that any apparent delays are part of a more perfect plan. We are called to a faith that is undiminished by apparent delays.
Dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape you: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay (see Second Peter 3:8-9).
ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
If we are content with a weak prayer life we must also be content with an incomplete joy. But this is not what Jesus intends for us. We are meant to have a posture of expectant faith that is so great that no circumstance can challenge it, that believes that the fulfillment of all his promises might be just around the corner, that it may indeed come at any moment. The joy of the life of prayer Jesus wants for us as a joy that sees all the promises as already our own even while they are still on the way. To receive this joy we must ask in his name.
Our joy is not just for ourselves. It is one of our best tools as witnesses. The world may not readily accept the syllogisms of Thomas Aquinas as proofs of God. But when they see Christians continuing to live lives of love, joy. and forgiveness in difficult circumstances, this is harder to dismiss. It was for this reason that the very presence of Paul in the communities to which he traveled brought "strength to all the disciples." This is not that joy was a replacement for words in the those early communities, as we see with Apollos.
He vigorously refuted the Jews in public,
establishing from the Scriptures that the Christ is Jesus.
But without joy our words just won't be credible, for our words themselves insist that joy should be something that defines us.
All you peoples, clap your hands;
shout to God with cries of gladness.
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome,
is the great king over all the earth.
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