A recent conversation on prayer

I had a conversation recently with a friend about prayer. The issue was when do we pray specific prayers and when do we pray for God's will to be done? He said that he often finds himself praying for God's will in his life when he is searching for an answer or is in need rather than praying specifically for what he desires. He has issue with those that say because God didn't answer according to our wish, we must not have had enough faith or made our petition correctly or some other excuse like that.

So, he finds himself praying in need, but ending with saying "your will be done." Looking at that, he sees where that is a rationalization on our part to give ourselves an out. We discussed this. If I pray, "Lord, I really want this, but your will be done", then when we don't get what we want we have that out. My father-in-law calls this a coward's prayer. He says Jesus only prayed "nevertheless your will be done" when he knew that God's will was something he didn't want. That is, when he was about to face the cross - his true purpose on earth - he as a man didn't want it to happen, but knew it was God's will to occur. So, when we pray for something we do want, but then say "but your will be done", we are wimping our with our petition.

Back to the conversation with my friend, who has seen "more fervent prayer" but has never prayed that way himself, I told him my take on things. Basically, I said that I pray according to "you have not because you ask not" (James 4:2), which I have rudimentarily translated to "the answer may be no, but it doesn't hurt to ask." Of course, James goes on to say "you ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives." So, we must be sure our motives are pure. If they are, though, I believe we can ask what we will of our Father. Of course, he may say no, which may not seem fine at the time, but must be permissible.

My friend is about to spend at least the next 3 years in as a "tent maker" missionary in a middle eastern country. He has already visited for a few weeks, and said that the Christians he met there prayed more fervently that he is used to. With that in mind, I also said that I believe when we are walking with God and being led by the Holy Spirit, there will be times when we desire something that we know to be God's will, but that has not yet come to pass. In those cases, we most definitely must fervently for that specific answer. We are in spiritual war and there are supernatural powers that are working against us, which we may not understand. God wants to answer our prayer and so we must continue to seek that answer. I think of the example in the Bible where the apostles (I believe) were fervently praying for an answer for a long time. Finally, an angel arrives and tells them that God sent him with the answer the day they started praying, but he was delayed in the heavens by demons that he had to overcome. (I wish I knew where that scripture was. If anyone does, please let me know).

Anyway, prayer is always an interesting topic. I believe we are to pray the desires of our hearts, but only when our motives are right should we expect affirmative answers, and even then we may not get them. God does know best, after all. The key is our motives with our hearts' desires. This cancels out the "name it, claim it" or "prosperity" philosophies that say all Christians should be driving Benzes and wearing rolexes if only we have faith and ask.

Thoughts?

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