Sometimes when people pray, they are like the Jewish man who prayed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. A reporter asked what the man was praying for. He said, “In the morning I pray for world peace. In the afternoon I pray for the healing of all diseases. Before I leave, I pray for protection of all people from natural disasters.”
“How long have you been doing this?” the reporter asked.
“For 25 years. But to be honest with you, sometimes it feels like I’m just praying against a wall.”
Joshua 3:4
Examine Yourselves Personally: Do you feel like you are praying against a brick wall, even beating your head against it? Sometimes we keep doing the same things over and over again, not out of a genuine experience with God or an expectation that God will answer. We need to truly examine ourselves personally when we come to prayer.
Have you ever mindlessly prayed a prayer, simply out of habit? “Lord, bless this food for the nourishment of our body.” Like God has never heard that one before.
Examine your prayers like you have never prayed before. For instance, should you pray “Bless this food,” when you know it is not healthy to eat it? Maybe you should pray, “Lord, help me fast today so I can see that you mean more to me than food.”
A Christian comic commented on those who pray, “Lead, guide and direct us,” said that God doesn’t need us to be a thesaurus. Don’t pray the same things over and again using different synonyms.
In Joshua 3:4, the officers said put some space between the people and the ark of the covenant which represented the presence and leadership of God. The officers explained that they needed to put space (a thousand yards, or ten football fields!) between them and God, because they had never passed this way before. We see two things in this:
1) Put a holy distance between you and God, a sense of reverence between you and the Lord. There is a reason why I keep bringing up reverence in prayer each week in each of these portraits: God commands us to be reverent. We should come to God cautiously, not casually. Yes, we have boldness to come before the throne of grace, but we can only come boldly because of the atoning blood of Christ.
2) In addition to putting space between the people and the ark, representing a sense of reverence for God’s holiness, the officers reminded the people that God must lead them because they have never been that way before. In other words, when you pray, step back and look for God to move. Anticipate the God of the universe to show up. He is God, we are not. Put some space between yourself and God and examine what you do after you say “Amen.”
If you have ever watched Bruce Almighty, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Watch this clip.
Now it may seem a little contradictory to talk about reverence to God and Jim Carrey at the same time. But do you see a little bit of yourself in Bruce Nolan obliviously praying and ignoring God's answers? We all have prayed and told God what to do, but then failed to follow what He has impressed on our hearts to do.
Too often we seek in prayer to be God’s counselors, rather than seek God’s counsel.
When we look at praying expectantly, we should examine our hearts and what our actions will be after we leave our prayer closets. We should personally get involved under God’s leadership, asking God to perhaps allow us to be the answer to our prayers or perhaps the answer to someone else’s prayers.
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