"Lord, keep him safe. Dear, God watch over her." Have you ever prayed that way? Do you now? I sure have. But in recent years I have struggled with that kind of prayer. There has been much written about and discussed, even debated when it comes to the topic of prayer. What does it mean when I pray for God to keep my son "safe"? Does it mean he wouldn't be safe unless I prayed for his safety? Does it mean God only provides protection if we pray for it. Does it mean that otherwise His arms are crossed looking the other way or at least He is distracted and our prayer don't get His attention?
Let's face it. Some of our children stay safe all their lives without hardly any consistency of prayer for safety while children of others may suffer a deadly illness or accident after praying every day for protection from such things. This dilemma I speak of touches on the whole debate revolving around whether or not certain things are predestined to occur no matter how we might pray. Are things set in stone or can we alter the course of events by invoking the miraculous or divine intervention?
Is it wrong to ask God for things to work out when life doles out hardship? Is it right to expect a miracle for every impossible situation we pray about? The bible is full of the miraculous. Maybe some of you have experienced what you call a miracle or divine intervention. I have certainly had a few good things occur in my life for which I have given credit to God. But it seems to me to be the case that the journey of life is dynamic, unpredictable and full of twists and turns no matter how we might pray for everything to work out the way we would like.
I believe that God is love and the point of all of life is to love. Love each other. Love God. Prayer is simply talking to God. It is a conversation with the Divine who is mysterious, unseen and exists in a dimension we are not yet a part of. Prayer is our reach across the invisible barrier of time and space to somehow be in touch with the One who we believe exists and is somehow present in us.
It is hard to imagine that I could ever ask God for something good and beat him to the punch as if He didn't already have that request in mind. There are many verses in the bible where either Jesus or one of the New Testament writers states that God will give us anything we ask for or give us the desires of our heart if we ask in His name or according to His will. I don't know what that means because God does not give us everything we ask for even if we ask in His name or if we think we are asking according to His will. So either we mainly ask for the wrong things or Jesus and the New Testament writers had something else in mind when it comes to "asking" or "everything" or "according to His will."
I'm not going to resolve this struggle here but all this to say that communing with God about what we want, what we need or about the desires of our heart is the point. Bringing our hopes and desires before Him, not so much as making the ask, but to express our heart to Him about such matters is the key. I like to think that talking to God about what we want opens our heart to hear wisdom, discernment and most importantly to hear that still quiet voice of the Creator telling us that He loves us no matter how things turn out. Yes?