Psalm 124. What If?

Here is a devotional thought I shared with the Alpha Canada Regional Director team on our most recent  conference call. I am so blessed to be part of a praying team.

Psalm 124
If the Lord had not been on our side — let Israel say — if the Lord had not been on our side when people attacked us, they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us; the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away. Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped.  Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

I’m thinking of prayer. Why do we pray? If God knows what we want, why do we ask Him? If He knows what he is going to do, why do we ask Him. The question that occurred to me is, “What if?” What if the Lord had not been on our side? What if we hadn’t prayed?

We’ve all seen answers to prayer. We’ve all seen God’s provision and we’ve all praised Him and shared our praises with one another regarding His faithfulness. But I wonder if we’ve taken these answers to our prayers for granted – as ordinary – as to be expected? Frankly I don’t think that’s all bad. Obviously we shouldn’t take God for granted in a presumptuous way, but I think we can see it as being confident in His faithfulness. Rather than arrogantly expecting God to grant us our will, the way we expect Him to answer our prayers, let us make it a matter of trust and faith that He will answer our prayers because they are in accordance with His will.

Psalm 37:4 tells us:Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Make sure the desires of our hearts come from Him.

What would have happened if we hadn’t prayed? Best not to know. Best not to make that test. St Paul tells us to pray without ceasing. So we continue to lift up all things, great and small. Not only is nothing impossible for God – nothing is too big for him to grant, but also nothing is too small for Him to bother with. We can pray for all the small everyday things – we can pray for each meeting or phone call, we can pray for safety in our travels, we can pray for the salvation of our friends and families, we can pray for donor support.

If we can’t think of anything else we can simply pray, “Thy will be done…” As Father Tim says in Jan Karon’s Mitford books, “It’s the prayer that never fails.”


So we don’t stop praying. We pray always. We pray every day. We’re ready at all times to lift up any circumstance or situation in prayer.

Blessings,

John 

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