What Do We Expect When We Pray?

Not many will reach the mark as long as in prayer we just pour out our hearts in a multitude of petitions, without taking time to see whether every petition is sent with the purpose and expectation of getting an answer.

If, as in silence of soul we bow before the Lord, we ask such questions as these: What is really my desire? Do I desire it in faith, expecting to receive? Am I ready to place and leave it in the Father's bosom? Is it a settled thing between God and me that I am to have the answer?

We should learn so to pray that God would see and we would know what we really expect.

The “will” rules the whole heart and life; if I really will to have anything that is within my reach, I do not rest till I have it. When Jesus says to us, “What wilt thou”? He asks whether it is indeed our purpose to have what we ask at any price, however great the sacrifice. Do you will to have it even when He delays it long? Do you hold your peace until He hears you? How many of your prayers are wishes, sent up for a short time and then forgotten, or sent up year after year as a matter of duty and not resting content with the prayer until it is answered?

The very essence of the prayer is faith. Jesus trained His disciples to not just make known their desire and then leave the decision to God. That would be the prayer of submission, for cases in which we cannot know God's will. But the prayer of faith, and finding “God's will” in the promise of the Word, pleads for our petition until it comes.

Matt 28 tells us as we read that Jesus said to the blind man: “Believe ye that I can do this”? In Mark, He says: “What wilt thou that I should do”? In both cases He said that faith had saved them.

He said to the Syrophenician woman, “Great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt”.

Faith is the purpose of the will resting on God's word, and saying: I must have it. To believe truly is to will firmly.

True humility is in company with strong faith. It only seeks to know what is according to "the will of God". It boldly claims the fulfillment of the promise: “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you”.

Lord Jesus when we come to you in prayer please give us the boldness to do so expecting in faith and to have patience to hear your voice as you reveal to us “your will” for the petitions that we bring before you. Amem.