11/13/2024

I was praying with someone recently about an urgent need, and I asked them, “What specifically do you want me to pray?” The needs were complex and there were various ways to pray. I wanted to hear from the person dealing with the situation, living with it on a daily basis, what they wanted and expected from God. 

Why? 

Specific prayers are answered specifically. 

Often our prayers are vague. For example, we’ll pray something like, “God bless me today and keep me safe,” when what we really need to pray is, “God I am overwhelmed by what I am facing today and need you to walk beside me.” Or we pray, “Jesus help my child at school,” instead of “Jesus, my son is struggling with algebra. Please help him grasp the concepts today,” (a prayer I wished my folks had prayed more specifically!). 

It may be that our prayers are vague because we’re afraid of really trusting in the Lord.  Since we’re afraid to go out on a limb, we hedge our bets and only pray vague prayers that maybe are answered by God or maybe by the natural course of events. The prayer was vague.  But when we pray specifically, we’re adding an element of risk. 

To pray specifically is to put God and ourselves on the spot. 

True, God does not always do what we ask. That’s usually because what we asked for was not what God wanted to do (that’s praying against the will of God). Even Jesus and Paul made requests that God did not grant (Luke 22:42; 2 Cor 12:8-9). But, if we never make bold requests, boldly trusting God to answer, we will never experience the joy of seeing God actually answer them.

To pray specifically is to say to God that this is something I’ve really thought about.  

When it came to praying for someone or something or against someone or something, the psalmists were always VERY specific. Take Psalm 60, for example, where in the concluding verses, 11-12, the psalmist prays: 

O grant us help against the foe, 
          for human help is worthless.
With God we shall do valiantly; 
          it is he who will tread down our foes.

Which foes? If you read earlier in the psalm, in verse 7, you’ll see the psalmist mention the “foes” by name: Moab, Edom and Philistia.

The Jews are never vague when it comes to naming their foe! Theirs is a specificity we need to mirror in our prayers.

There’s also a specificity about Whom they were trusting.

“For human help is worthless,” the psalmist says in 60:11-12, “with God we shall do valiantly.”  

That’s an important lesson for us! No matter large or small, we need to specifically call them out to God in prayer. Using Psalm 60 as an example, we might pray, “God, my foe is worry. Human help is worthless, with God I shall do valiantly.” Or we may pray for someone else: “God, my neighbor’s foe is alcoholism. Human help is worthless, with God I shall do valiantly.” 

Whatever we’re praying against, we should be very specific. 

We learn this from the psalms. 

“Human help is worthless,” but the salvation we have in Christ is the power of God for the salvation to everyone who believes. God will hear this very specific prayer and give us the answer. 

But often (I started to type “sometimes,” but “often” is more the truth), praying this way also involves patience in waiting for the answer. 

During communion this past Sunday, we sang Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” Whether you’re on the banks of the Red Sea with Egyptian chariots breathing down your neck or in the doctor’s office facing a scary diagnosis, the word from God is “be still,” “wait,” and “trust.” 

That’s not always easy to do, but do we go to a doctor’s office (I’m becoming the expert on that), unload on him or her all of our aches and pains and then just leave? No. We wait. We wait for the doctor to make a diagnosis and come up (hopefully) with a solution. 

The scriptures says, “Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth,” not “Hear Lord, for thy servant speaketh”!  

So an important part of our prayers should be waiting and listening for the voice of God.

If I pray for “blessings,” God may answer, but I may not recognize the answer when it comes. But if, on the other hand, I pray for something specific, I will be more attentive and alert as I wait expectantly for God’s answer.

“Human help is worthless, with God I will do valiantly!”

Blessings, 
Pastor Terry