Mar
01
Q & A: “How can I be sure I am praying God’s will?“
I recently began an e-mail correspondence with a pastor in the Philippines who discovered our website. He is doing a great ministry in a rural area and has led many to the Lord. Many of his e-mails contain great questions from people in his church. I took some time writing my response. This series of blogs contain those questions and answers.
Question: How can I be sure I am praying according to the will of God?
Answer: The question that you ask is an excellent one. You would do well to try to determine the will of God and pray it. But the question is also complicated. Is it possible for us to completely understand the will of God? I think common sense would dictate that God is too big or complex for us to completely understand his will. Isaiah 55:8-9 would seem to confirm that assertion. But Jesus taught us to pray for his will to be done in the Lord’s prayer. So we should try to discover God’s will and pray it. Although I don’t always know God’s will, I have found a couple ways of praying to get me closer to it. One thing that I do is pray the scriptures. I read a portion of the Bible and I pray about what it says. I try to apply its truth to the situations I see around me and pray the truth of the Bible over it. The other thing that I have done that has helped me get closer to praying the will of God is to spend time listening to God. If prayer is “talking with” God, then there should be times where we speak and then there should also be times when God speaks to us and we listen. Most of my prayer times are about 1/3 me speaking to God and about 2/3 me listening for God to speak to me. When praying over people in my church, I now start my prayer by asking God to show me how and what to pray over them. Sometimes what comes to mind is very different from what they have asked me to pray for.
Here is the complicated part. Apparently our prayers can change God’s mind. Moses’ prayers kept God from wiping out the nation of Israel. Hezekiah’s pray extended his life by ten years. “God’s will” apparently has wiggle room for our personal requests. As a parent I have plans, but because I love my children, when they ask me for something I will try to accommodate their request within my plan.
The passage I like to teach on about listening to God is 1 Samuel 3. Here the boy Samuel hears God’s voice for the first time. The points I like to make are these. 1. God wants to speak to us. 2. We have to learn to listen. 3. Our attitude is important (Samuel identifies himself as the Lord’s servant) 4. We must be willing to obey the voice of God (Samuel did and went on to be a great man of God. Eli didn’t when God spoke to him about his sons and they all died.)