Asking

God is our refuge and our strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Ps 46:1-3

We have done everything we can to save our daughter. I am a doctor. I have money, respect, influence, connections, the ability to communicate and a confidence that I can make all things work out well, eventually. I am a Christian doctor who has God on my side, but our daughter is caught up in terrible sin and destructive living. She lashes out when we try to speak about her life and her friends. My precious daughter, our greatest joy in life, is on a downward spiral and is being destroyed. O God, help us!

It may not be a broken, precious child. It may be your own broken health, or a lost relationship, or a malpractice suit that will bankrupt your practice, or a sin that you can not release, or a dream that will never come true. We will all come to a place in our lives where we cannot overcome and thus cry out to a God in helplessness and hopelessness. How do we do prayer right so that we can get our greatest needs met? Even the question denies the answer. We are so used to doing things right, in order to make things come out right, that we even make prayer into something we can personally accomplish. Oswald Chambers understood what it means to “ask” in a way that God longs to hear.

“‘Asking’ in prayer is at once the test of three things---simplicity, stupidity and certainty of God.”

Simplicity: not with the complexity of explaining to God how to work things out, but with the heart felt simplicity of, “O God, help me!”

Stupidity: “I give up. I am not able!”

Certainty: God loves me. He has a plan that includes me and is far greater than me. He has the power to accomplish all that His love for me and His plan for Creation desires. I will stand on these truths though the Earth gives way beneath my feet. “O God--- you know, you care and you can!”

I suspect, with Oswald Chambers, that this prayer is the one that God most wants to hear and answer.

Dear God,
Let me trust your love, your plan and your power, whatever that brings to me. Amen