This is an issue about prayer that almost never gets addressed. It was put to me by my friend Nancy. Her note, almost verbatim:
Someday I need you to help me understand why we are told when we pray and believe our prayers will be answered. Then people die in spite of our pleas for health. I know it is within God’s will but why ask if His will is what is going to occur anyway? I know thousands of prayers were said for (a friend who died some years back) and for my friend I saw buried today. Thousands are being said for (a friend with cancer) yet she is in a battle for her life.
We are told “you have not because you ask not.” Maybe this would be a good blog topic. I can’t be the only one who struggles with these thoughts.
If you only knew, Nancy.
Let’s start by this upfront admission: When it comes to prayer, things are not as simple as they may seem at first.
Frankly, as one who likes things simple and cut-and-dried, this is painful to admit.
True, the Bible actually does say things like: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives….” (Matthew 6:7-8) And it says: “Whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14).
There are plenty more similar texts, but those two are sufficient to establish that the blanket promises are out there.
What are serious disciples of the Lord Jesus to make of such prayer promises? Here are some aspects of the subject that should help…
1. The disciples clearly did not understand these as blank checks.
Had they interpreted such promises as “get-out-of-jail-free” cards, they would have cashed them in. At the first sign of trouble, they would have “named it and claimed it” and poof! all is well.
That is not what we see happening in the early church.