I was driving the other day, and I drove past the house of someone who I know to not only be lost but also to be actively opposing Christianity and engaged in serious spiritual darkness. I said a quick prayer that God would work in their life and save them. As I drove on past, I reflected on how God had been answering my prayers quite a bit recently. It struck me like a bolt of lightning: “My Father can answer that prayer.” I was amazed and praising God, knowing He can answer it over and abundantly. God can change that persons heart and use the words shared and radically change them no matter what obstacles are in his way. He can work in our ministry. As Paul says, He “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).
Now, I know many of you reading this are probably saying, “Duh. We believe that God can answer prayers.” There is a difference between affirming the truth and experiencing it. We can affirm that God answers prayer, but believing it is another thing. As I was driving I sincerely was experiencing the joy of the Lord that overcame me with that thought that my Heavenly Father can do it.
I am not saying that our faith or belief is what bends the will of God to act, but instead, our faith is trusting that He is able. “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14).
This whole experience caused my mind to go in two directions and to see the overlap between them. Jesus, in His teaching on the persistence of prayer, gives the illustration of the annoying neighbor and the persistent widow. The premise is that our prayers should be filled with faith and persistence toward the Lord. Jesus tells us to “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). In the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus teaches that we “ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1).
I have two sons with disabilities. One is non-verbal, and another would best be described as non-conversational. One has physical damage and delays that prevent him from vocalizing, and the other has a great many words but is non-conversational and typically is limited to one-word responses or phrases designed as requests.
Yet none of these limitations have limited their reliance upon me as a father. They cannot often vocalize their desires, but they can make their requests clear to me as their father. Often, I can understand them because my closeness to them helps me to understand what each cough, hand grab, sound, and motion means.
My sons often misunderstand my responses or struggle to express their displeasure with my responses. There are things that I can’t do, there are things I won’t do, and there are things that I won’t do right now. My answers to their requests will be Yes, No, and Wait. Even with the “yes,” their ability to understand the time that it takes me to fulfill their request is hard for them.
How often am I like this myself with my heavenly Father?
My children have childlike faith in me. They believe that there is nothing I cannot do. It breaks my heart when it is something I physically or financially can’t do. It even breaks my heart sometimes when it is something that I won’t do right now, if they cannot understand why I am asking them to wait. But at this phase in life, they still believe that there is nothing I cannot do for them.
What a glory it is to reflect on my heavenly Father. There is really nothing that He cannot do. How wonderful is it that my heavenly Father is a God of love who loves to hear my prayers and loves to answer them. His answers are sometimes “No,” and sometimes they are “Wait,” but how glorious that He really can and does hear us and answer. As Jesus reminds us, if earthly fathers know how to give good gifts to their children, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11).
My house is rarely empty between our children, nurses, therapists, teachers, friends, church members, and others. One thing I find funny is how my children have also learned that when I don’t respond immediately, they can get someone else to intercede on their behalf. They have learned to get partners in their crime.
They will ask anyone in our house for what they are looking for. This often leads to me moving with a greater fervency to help answer their request.
In the same way, when I am extremely burdened for something, I can take it to my brothers and sisters in Christ and ask them to join me in prayer. Again, the amount of people praying does not bend the will of God, but it does expand the glory of our God as we seek prayer partners.
Paul, in 2 Corinthians, tells the church at Corinth to pray so that others would see how God delivers and answers, and then we have doubled the glory given to our God. He writes, “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many” (2 Corinthians 1:11).
The greater my dependence grows on my heavenly Father, the more I find my prayers becoming like my children’s requests: simple, persistent, and believing. Rather than setting out long times for prayer, my prayers become continuous throughout the day. Vacillating between adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and requests, it just flows out and becomes the air that I breathe. Scripture tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and I have found that this kind of prayer is less about setting aside a particular moment to pray and more about living throughout the day in conscious dependence upon my Father.
I have found in this season not a solution to all my problems, but just a simple trust that my God knows and hears. A faith that enables me to just keep praying, knowing He can and will answer and do what He knows is best for me. “Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). I trust that He will give me rest, He will use me in ministry, and He will answer the prayers that draw me closer to His heart. Like a good father, He delights to answer the prayers closest to His heart. He delights for me to rely upon Him when I am doing what He has called me to do.
You may not be in this place, and I haven’t always been, but I want you to know it’s there and to help you find the simple joy in it. Just ask. See it when He says yes. Share it when He says yes. Believe He has what’s best in mind for you when He says no or wait. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).
What a glorious truth: you get the opportunity to go to your heavenly Father in this same way. You can go believing that He can.