Prayer and Faith

Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3



I admit...I am not great at praying, in fact, to be honest, probably my greatest sin is prayerlessness. I don't know why I struggle with it so much. Is it laziness to put the time aside? Is it that I don't believe my prayers will get answered? It is because I don't want to really do it? I don't know. But I am constantly searching for truths about prayer. To me, prayer is such a fine balance of acceptance of God's will and boldness of faith that it will happen. I don't know if I can quite put it into words, but what I mean is, that I know God answers prayer; I know He can answer prayer, but I also know that sometimes my requests are not His will, so He will not answer it the way that I want---not because I don't have faith, but because His will is perfect. So, I guess, sometimes I hesitate to ask or beseech Him because I know He will ultimately do what is best. But maybe that is my job....to seek Him, ask Him, and then His will is done.

I see an example of prayer here in Mark 1 when a leper comes to him...



1:40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.



What if that leper would have never kneeled down and asked? He may have never been healed, even though Jesus was fully able to. I am sure there were other lepers that were never healed because they never asked.



I see the leper's sense of prayer...he kneeled down; he was humble. Beseeching him. To me that is different than just asking...it's an urgent plea.



His words are so important "If thou WILST, thou CANST make me clean." If it's Your will, I know You can, Jesus.



So things, I've learned from this leper about prayer...

1. I need to ask (pray).

2. I need to be humble.

3. I need to be urgent about it.

4. I need to acknowledge His will is best.

5. I need to have faith that He can!



Thank You, Abba, for teaching me this since it was just yesterday that I was discussing the struggle I was having with prayer and faith.