To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

 

Mark 11:24 NIV

 

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

 

When you pray for something, do you believe you will receive it?  Do you really, really believe it?  If we’re truthful, most of the time when we pray, we don’t really believe God will do what we’re asking Him to do.  Why?  In most instances, it’s because we rarely receive what we ask for. 

 

But wait a minute!  Didn’t Jesus say in this verse to believe that we have received what we ask for, and it will be ours?  Yes, He did.  But the truth is that most of our prayers aren’t within His will.  And the reason is, we haven’t engraved all the earlier steps in the process of living by faith in our hearts.  More specifically, we haven’t opened ourselves up to the Holy Spirit and asked Him to change us – to change our wants to conform to His will. 

 

Over the years, God has taught me again and again that if I’m asking for something that’s within His will, not only will He do what I ask, but He’ll do it specifically the way that I ask.  He’s also taught me that when He responds specifically, it’s because what I asked for was what HE laid on my heart.  So, in reality, my specific prayers are me repeating back to Him what HE told me to say!  I’ve also found that the requests He’s laid on my heart are often quite creative, and His responses to those requests – the ones HE told me to pray for – are sometimes so outrageous that they have a great big sign on them that says, “God did it!”

 

I am NOT saying that God is a giant spiritual vending machine, which I can drop my prayer “coins” into and out will pop anything I want!  Far from it!  God is not a puppet.  He is not controlled by anything, our prayers included.  God does not HAVE to do anything He does not want to do.  However, when HE lays a prayer on your heart, then He will grant your prayer. 

 

Does this mean that we will receive His answer instantly?  No, it doesn’t.  Quite often, He says “Yes”, but He also says, “In my good time.”  Remember, God has the entire “script”.  He sees the past, present and future all at the same time.  His timing is perfect, even though His timing can be quite frustrating for us!  On Monday, we might pray for something that we need by 5:00 on Friday, and God says, “Okay, I’ll see you at 4:55 Friday afternoon!”  So we must not only learn to believe that we have already received what we pray for, but also that we will receive it in God’s time, not ours. 

 

Take the sixteenth step in learning to live by faith and believe… really believe in your heart… that you have already received what you’re praying for.