Even If...

Do you ever get weary of praying the same prayer over and over again? I sure do. Sometimes I wonder if I should just leave it all to God, and stop asking Him to meet needs and fulfill dreams, even if I think they are in His will. But so many times in the Bible, God tells us to come boldly to Him, to present our needs to Him believing and knowing that He will answer. He teaches us to ask persistently, without giving up.

“Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18).

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16, [emphasis mine], NKJV).

He doesn’t ask us to only pray for others or to only pray for our daily needs. He wants us to come boldly. Asking for daily needs, but also praying big prayers, life-changing prayers, world-changing prayers. He asks us to bring all kinds of prayers and requests to Him. He wants to know us intimately. While He already knows our hearts and our thoughts, when we bring every single prayer to Him, we are drawn closer to Him. This opening of our hearts changes us and our relationship with God.

I have an emergency code with my best friend. If I need her immediately and she doesn’t answer her phone, I know how to reach her. I just have to call a second time. If I call twice in a row, she will leave anything she is doing to answer. She will literally walk out of a board meeting to answer my call. Who is that friend you can call at three in the morning, and she’ll answer?  God wants to be that friend. The One you go to first—no matter what. He wants to know us even more than those friends do, and our constant conversations with Him are how we get there.

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need” (Luke 11:5-8).

“Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’”

“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”

And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?’” (Luke 18:1-7).

God loves us enough that He wants us to keep coming to Him and presenting our pain and our needs, even though He already knows them. When I was younger, I believed He would just say “Yes” to anything I asked, if I was living in His will. Maybe it would take a while, but He would always come through. I just didn’t understand that coming through didn’t necessarily look like I thought it should.

I remember the moment I first learned this hard truth. The moment I knew in my heart that my dad wasn’t going to live. I had prayed with such confidence. My dad was a thoroughly good man. He lived with integrity. He was always aware of the outcast and those in need, and he did what he could to help them. Without hesitation. he was a year or so away from retiring and was planning to lead short-term mission trips, like so many he had gone on before. Then he got cancer. I knew God would heal him. I had no doubt. I was so excited for the glory God would get when the cancer was miraculously gone. However, something cracked the moment I realized that God’s will wasn’t the same as mine. This God I had believed in so thoroughly, for so long, wasn’t Who I thought He was. I didn’t yet realize that He is truly so much more.

Since that day, there have been many more prayers that have been answered with a “No.” And they, too, have been life changing. “Lord, please save my marriage” was met with a “No.” “Lord, please provide work,” was met with a “Wait and trust Me.” These answers have made me struggle with what God wants from me in prayer. Why am I asked to pray confidently and boldly, when I can’t always know His will, which is so much greater than mine? How am I to pray confidently, believing that He will say “Yes!” when I know full well He could say a resounding “No”?

I finally brought it up to my Bible study group. I asked the question and held back my tears. I just didn’t understand and I wanted to pray the way God wants me to pray. And truthfully, I would like some more yeses. Who wouldn’t? One of the women led me to the passage in Luke 11 and reminded me how many times God tells us to keep asking. Another one suggested that I turn the question back to God. So finally, after all these years of struggling with this issue, I took it to the Lord. I asked Him to make sense of this for me. To give me the ability to understand, even just a fragment of what He meant.

Here is what He gave me: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s standoff with King Nebuchadnezzar, who was about to throw them into the fiery furnace.

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to him, ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.  If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up’” (Dan. 3:16-18).

He will deliver us. Absolute confidence.

But if not. Absolute surrender.

We are supposed to bring all of our concerns to God and be confident that He will deliver us. And we are supposed to surrender our will to Him so completely that we can have peace if and when He says, “No.” This is such a tall request for a human heart and mind. To fully believe for the answer we are praying for, yet be fully satisfied in a “No.” The only way I know to even try to live this out is to be constantly growing closer in our relationship with Christ: being fully devoted to Him, watching Him work in our lives, and recognizing it as Him. And finally, choosing trust. Even if.

~ By Stephanie Bartelt. Stephanie is a writer and a single mom, who co-leads the single mom ministry at her church. Additionally, she is currently writing a book to help single moms find hope. Read her blog at loveunrationed.com.