Pray WITH Me

And there by the Ahava Canal, I gave orders for all of us to fast and humble ourselves before our God. We prayed that he would give us a safe journey and protect us, our children, and our goods as we traveled. [Ezra 8.21]

So we fasted and earnestly prayed that our God would take care of us, and he heard our prayer. [Ezra 8.23]

Observation: Ezra did not pray "but God's will be done" after asking for a safe journey. On the contrary, Ezra was specific in his prayer AND he had no doubts that God (and God alone) had answered His prayer because he and those with him made the journey safely. How simple is that?

I know it sounds nice and holy, but why then do we pray "But Your will be done"? What's the point in asking if God is just going to do what He wants anyway? Really? Let's at least have some consistency in our religion!

Frankly, and particularly in light of the circumstances, Jesus' one prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane does little to offset all the other numerous direct prayer requests without such a qualifier by various characters in the Bible both before AND after Jesus' time on earth - not to mention Jesus' own instructions to boldly make requests.

I don't want to be offensive here, but when I ask someone to pray with me for a particular request, nothing is more discouraging than for them to join in my prayer, and then add, "but Your will be done" as if to say, "We are all idiots here and are probably not asking according to Your will - so please just disregard everything we just asked..." In other words, "We'll just take whatever happens in life and say it is God's will. Praying makes us feel and look religious regardless of whether our faith ever accomplishes anything."

Almost every Christian I know (including myself) eventually prays this way. I believe it is against faith. I am trying to break free of it - I hope others will be freed as well. And, yes, we will be dangerously close to revealing just how much faith we actually have - the kind of faith that actually changes things.

I think I would prefer that people tell me I am stupid and refuse to pray with me at all rather than to pray such faithless circular nothingness. Really. Pray WITH me or don't pray at all! Let's see what God will say or do!

Otherwise, how else will we KNOW whether God indeed answered the prayer??? If we say"God please do this, but whatever," then how in the world will we know, like Ezra, that God granted or denied our request?

Can we not just be reasonable?

No doubt, to do so, we have some intense "unlearning" to do. And we must get with it - Christianity is shrinking - the world sees no power at all in the church - so we are obviously not doing something right!

Father, I want to come to You in boldness. I want to KNOW that You either grant or deny my requests. I want my requests and Your answers to be clear! Help me to live and pray by real faith - and please help me to help and encourage others do the same.