Prayer Can Be Confusing

This afternoon Redemption will celebrate the life of William Kinley. In the past twelve months Redemption has grieved and celebrated the lifes of four of our family members, all to the terrible “C” word. Georgia Roach, Stacey Cobb, Mike Edwards, and now William, all people who loved the Lord. These were not people who just showed up on Sunday morning. These were people who served, who were active, who were making a difference. People who were sharing their faith, and the love of Jesus with others.

It’s kind of like pulling your best player from the game, when you are down by one point in the last few seconds. You wonder what is the coach doing? That isn’t the way I would coach, but thankfully I am not the coach.

We as a church prayed for healing in the lives of all four of these people. We prayed for God to remove cancer from their bodies and make them whole and well again, but God didn’t do that. There are some who would say, God answered your prayers. They are whole and healed in heaven.

I don’t feel that way. They are healed and whole again. But, that was not my prayer. My prayer was that God would heal their physical body here on earth. That they would have many more years with their families, many more days, and laughs, and hugs, many more years of serving the Lord here on earth.

We could question and say but, Matthew 18:19, says “ Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” With these four people there were many asking for healing, many on earth who agreed they should be healed. So, why were they not?

1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”

Because, we pray selfishly, when we pray for healing for someone we are praying for us. We are praying for that person to stay here with us. Who would choose this world over heaven? Who would choose to be here with us if they could be in the presence of Jesus? We pray for our will, our desire not his. Which is the normal thing do to in this situation.

So, do I feel like God didn’t answer all of our prayers for these four people? No, I feel like we were praying the wrong prayer. James 4:3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” It isn’t wrong to pray for healing, I believe God tells us to ask, and to keep asking but we have to pray for healing that is in God’s will.

I even struggle with that, because I feel like if I pray for healing then I am stepping out and asking God for a miracle. I am asking and believing he will do it. I feel like if I add, if it’s your will, on to it then I am adding insurance. As if to say, oh he didn’t heal, it wasn’t my lack of faith, it just wasn’t his will.

It can all be confusing if I over think it, which I tend to do. But I believe John 14:13-14, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything, in my name, I will do it.”

I believe God answered our prayers with these four amazing people. We prayed in his name, it wasn’t his will that they be healed here on earth, we selfishly wanted to keep them, but the Father was glorfied in the life and death of each of these four precious people. And my life is better for having known each of them. Georgia, Stacey, Mike, and William you are missed by many.