Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Mark 11:24
There is a famous scene from The West Wing[1]where President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet says, “Decisions are made by those who show up.” It’s this way in all of life. When Aaron Sorkin wrote those words, he was encouraging everyone to participate and get involved with government and elections. After all, if we don’t speak up, no one’s going to hear or notice.
It may sound silly. It may sound so simple. It may even sound stupid. But, the same thing is true with prayer. To get an answer to prayer, the very first thing you have to do is show up. And the only way to show up for prayer is to pray.
There is no pre-prayer preamble. No prayer pre-game stretching or practice. No pre-prayer meal or hydration. You don’t have to register or get in line to pray. You don’t take a number or wait for your name to be called before you pray. You don’t have to go someplace special or see someone before you pray.
Prayer starts when we start talking with God. In order to ask God for something in prayer, you have to pray.
You do not have because you do not ask God.
James 4:2
It all starts when we start talking to God. Without our opening up the door to him, there’s little that’s going to happen. There’s no answer to prayer without first asking. Yes, God does already know all our needs. But he’s looking for us to fulfill our purpose and destiny through an open, interactive, intimate, and deeply personal relationship with him.
A relationship where we come to him as our Heavenly Father. Our Eternal Father who never fails. Never disappoints. Is never late. Never withholds good. He always wants only our best. Is always leaning in towards us. Always reaching out to us. Always beside us. Always surrounding us. Always protecting us.
And with this kind of relationship, our expectation needs to be that God will always be true to himself. He always acts just like he is. He will always speak truth that’s consistent with who he is.
This is what leads to a life of faith. Faith is where you see life from God’s perspective before it happens. Because of who God is, we see life from his point of view. We see him in charge of this world and our life. He’s never short of resources, time, energy, information, or insight.
Faith is the title deed of things hoped for
Hebrews 11:1 Wuest
When you have the title deed to something, you already own it.
Something amazing happened during one of our moves. When we left Connecticut for our new house in Arizona, it wasn’t ours. By the time we arrived in Scottsdale, we owned it. When we arrived, were handed the keys and we walked right in.
How could this happen? We weren’t there for the closing. We weren’t there to sign the paperwork. We weren’t there to shake hands to close the deal. Yet, we owned the house. It was ours. Our name was on the title.
We didn’t have to worry about it. We didn’t have to obsess about it. We didn’t have to call every hour to check and see if something had gone wrong. We didn’t think about what would happen if the house burned to the ground. We didn’t make contingency plans for what to do with our furniture, or where to spend the night.
We left Connecticut and drove the 2,500+ miles with the assurance that when we got there, the house would be there. That it would be ours.
Faith is like that. It’s like the piece of paper that has our name on it. It says for all the world to see that it belongs to us. It’s a guarantee that even though we haven’t yet arrived, that it belongs to us
When we pray in faith, when we exercise faith, we’re agreeing with God, who he is, and what he wants to do. Prayer isn’t us arguing with God to convince him that our way is the best. It’s more of us coming to the realization that his way is the best, even if there is near-term pain, loss, suffering.
Last time I counted; I had gone through at least 17 surgical procedures. And for every one of them, there was pain. No getting around it, pain was involved. There was also inconvenience, not being allowed to eat or drink from midnight the day before. Sometimes there was even pre-procedure things to be done (and NONE of them was what anyone would call pleasant.) But, even after the first 10 procedures, I still signed up and went through more procedures.
Why? Because I trusted the doctors. Because I was told by someone who knows a heck of a lot more than I know. That it would help me in the long run.
If I’m willing to trust doctors, shouldn’t I be ready to trust the God who loves me? Died for me? Making a place for me? Coming back for me?
[1] https://youtu.be/XVwBD3Ced40?t=36
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