Mark Ashton, in his book, A Voice in the Wilderness, talks about a small boy who was writing a letter to God. Christmas was approaching and he wanted to ask God for certain Christmas presents he badly wanted. He began his letter with these words: “I've been good for six months now.”
But then he thought about it a little and crossed out the “six months” and wrote “three.” After a little more thought, he crossed that out and put “two weeks.” There was another pause, and he crossed that out too.
Then he got up from the table and went over to the little nativity scene that had the figures of Mary and Joseph. He picked up the figure of Mary and went back to his writing and started again: “Dear God, if ever you want to see your mother again…” (Mark Ashton, A Voice in the Wilderness, OM Publishing; www.PreachingToday.com)
We laugh at that, but sad to say, that’s the way a lot of people view prayer. They think they have to bribe a reluctant God; and if that doesn’t work, then somehow manipulate Him to give them what they want. No wonder so few people ever experience the joy of answered prayer.
Prayer is not manipulating a reluctant God to give us what we want. It is communicating with a God who wants to give us more than we could ever ask or even think. Martin Luther once said, “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.”
So how then do you lay hold of God’s willingness? How do you connect with a God who is very generous and willing to share His riches in glory by Christ Jesus? If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 25, Genesis 25, where we see how an Old Testament couple laid a hold of God’s willingness in prayer.
Genesis 25:19-21 These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. (ESV)
Rebekah was barren, so Isaac prayed and she became pregnant. It’s really that simple. If you want to lay hold of God’s willingness, then…
PRAY.
Pray like Isaac did.
That means, 1st of all, be persistent in your prayers. Keep on praying and don’t give up until God answers.
According to verse 20, Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah. But according to verse 26, he didn’t have any children until he was 60 years old. God waited 20 years to answer Isaac’s prayers, but there is no indication that Isaac ever gave up praying, no. He persisted in his prayers until God came through, and that’s what you need to do if you’re going to lay a hold of God’s willingness. You must persist in prayer.
Retired pastor Lee Eclov talks about a time when he was surprised to read a Facebook posting from a friend in South Dakota named Diane.
She wrote, “Had a nice surprise last night. At about 10:30 p.m. the phone rang. It was Governor Mike Rounds checking in with us to see how the road repair was going.” There had been a lot of flooding in the area where Diane lives, and the roads were a mess—and the governor actually called her to see how she felt about the repair progress.
When Pastor Lee wrote Diane to express his surprise, she said it wasn't the first time a governor had called her. Another time, some years ago, one of South Dakota's previous governors called about some FEMA money for the area. She told Pastor Lee that when the governor called she was in the middle of a home perm, but couldn't very well tell the governor to hold while she rinsed her hair. She added: “That frizzy hair haunted me for weeks.”
Pastor Lee found it incredible, so he asked Diane if she was in county government or something. She said she wasn't, but sensing he was blown away by her interactions with the government, she had this to say: “I have found that shaking the tree from the top gets the fastest results. When there is a problem, I usually become the ‘squeaky wheel,’ and I think they just want to get me off their case!” (Lee Eclov, Vernon Hills, Illinois; www.PreachingToday .com)
That reminds me of the story Jesus told in Luke 18 about the persistent widow who kept bothering an unjust judge for justice against her adversary. For a while, he refused, but after a while, he said, “I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.”
Then Jesus makes this point: “Will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? ... I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:1-8)
If an unjust judge responds to persistent asking, think how much more our just and caring God would respond. The question is do you have enough faith to persist in “shaking the tree,” so to speak.
In another place, Jesus said, “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9, NLT)
If you want to lay hold of God’s willingness, you must persist in prayer.
Now, that’s not because God is stingy and unwilling to answer your prayers and you have to overcome his reluctance. Oh no. It’s just that God wants to do more for you than what you ask. You see, when you go to prayer, you want God to change your circumstances. But more often than not, God wants your circumstances to change you.
That’s why He often delays His answers to your prayers – not to keep something from you, but to give you more than what you could ever ask or even think. God wants to give you things like patience and strength of character. He wants to grow your faith and increase your love as you learn to empathize with those who hurt. You see, when God delays His answers to your prayers, He is giving you something whole lot more valuable than that for which you usually ask.
So don’t give up praying. Don’t give up on God, for if you keep on praying, you will get what you ask for and usually a whole lot more! It’s the best way to lay hold of God’s willingness and generosity. Like Isaac, persist in your prayers even if it takes us 20 years or more.
Then, like Isaac, if you want generous answers to our prayers, pray for what God has already promised. In other words, just ask God to keep His Word.
That’s what Isaac did. When he was a teenage boy, Isaac and his father, Abraham, took a trip together to the mountains of Moriah. When they arrived, Abraham tied his son up, put him on an altar and nearly sacrificed him to the Lord. But God provided a substitute sacrifice and Isaac’s life was spared.
That’s when Isaac heard God say to his father, “By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore” (Genesis 22:16-17).
Isaac knew that promise applied to him; so more than 20 years later, after he got married, he begins to ask God for children. You see, Isaac is simply asking God to keep His promises, and that’s what you must do if you want to see amazing answers to your prayers. Just keep on praying the promises of God. Just keep on asking God to keep His Word.
But someone says, “That’s going to limit my prayers!” No, actually it doesn’t. It’s your own selfish desires that limit your prayers; but when you pray for what God has already promised, it actually expands your prayers. When you look in the Bible to see what God has said about your situation, it gives you more things to pray for than you ever thought possible.
J. Oswald Sanders, in his book, Prayer Power Unlimited, talks about a family in Queensland, Australia who could barely scrape together enough food to survive from the desolate piece of property they owned. For many years, they toiled, eking out a living, not knowing that beneath their feet lay one of the richest mountains of gold the world has ever known – Mount Morgan. Their potential wealth was beyond measure, but they lived in poverty, all because they were ignorant of the wealth they possessed. (J. Oswald Sanders, Prayer Power Unlimited, p.39).
My friends, that’s what you have in the Bible – “a mountain of gold,” so to speak. Someone once counted over 30,000 promises in the Bible, promises which cover every area of the human experience. J. Oswald Sanders says, “There is no conceivable circumstance of life for which there is not an appropriate promise waiting to be claimed (Prayer Power Unlimited, p.41).
Please, don’t be ignorant of the wealth you possess right here in this book – the Bible. Open it up. Discover what God has already promised, and start claiming those promises today. You’ll find yourself asking God for more than you thought possible, and you’ll begin to experience some amazing answers to your own prayers.
If you want to lay hold of God’s willingness, then persist in praying for what God has already promised you. In other words, just keep on praying the promises of God; just keep on asking God to keep his word. Then…
EXPECT GOD TO ANSWER YOUR PRAYERS.
Expect God to answer in extraordinary and powerful ways. Look for God to respond in ways you least expect it, even against impossible odds. Anticipate unusual and unstoppable answers to your requests.
That’s what happened to Isaac. He experienced an unusual answer to his own prayer. He prayed for a child and got twins!
Genesis 25:22-23 The children struggled together within her” – Literally, they crushed each other within her. There was a war going on inside Rebekah’s womb. And she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” (ESV)
This is an unusual answer to prayer! 1st of all, Isaac prays for one child, and God gives him two! Then on top of that, God tells Rebekah that the older child would serve the younger one someday. Now, that’s not the way it is usually done. It’s customary for the younger to serve the older. But God says, “No, the older will serve the younger.
God’s ways are not man’s ways, so when you pray expect some unusual answers.
Romans 9 is the New Testament commentary on these verses. There it says, “When Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls – she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger’” (Romans 9:10-12).
God chose the younger over the older, not because the younger was going to be the better man, not because of any works he might do in his life, and not because he had more potential. Oh no. The fact is, from the human perspective, the older son grew up to be the better man with a whole lot more potential. The fact is the younger son turned out to be a home-bound, mamma’s boy, who resorted to manipulation and deceit to get his way.
Even so, God chooses him over the older son for His own purposes, and that’s the way it is when God chooses to save and use you for His glory. He doesn’t choose you because you have better potential or because of anything you have done or are going to do, no. God chooses those have the LEAST potential from the human perspective.
1 Corinthians 1 says, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).
God’s ways are not our ways, and so when God answers prayer, expect some unusual things; expect God to do some things that you wouldn’t normally do.
Years ago, Dave Phillips and his wife, Lynn, discussed a calling they felt God was stirring in them. As they discussed what they were most passionate about, they agreed that bringing relief to suffering children and reaching the next generation with the gospel were at the top of the list. They thought of starting a relief agency, but Dave's response was, “But that would mean I have to talk in front of people.” By nature, Dave is a very quiet, behind-the-scenes man.
But after much prayer, Dave set aside his fears, and he and Lynn started Children's Hunger Fund out of their garage. Six weeks after CHF was launched, in January of 1992, he received a phone call from the director of a cancer treatment center in Honduras asking if there was any way he could obtain a certain drug for seven children who would die without it. Dave wrote down the name of the drug and told the director that he had no idea how to get this type of drug. They then prayed over the phone and asked God to provide.
As Dave hung up the phone, before he even let go of the receiver, the phone rang again. It was a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey asking Dave if he would have any use for 48,000 vials of that exact drug! Not only did they offer him eight million dollars' worth of this drug, but they told him they would airlift it anyplace in the world! Dave would later learn that the company was one of only two that manufactured this particular drug in the United States.
Within forty-eight hours, Dave had the drug sent to the treatment center in Honduras and to twenty other locations as well. It was then he believed that God was at work, validating his calling to this ministry. (Francis Chan, Forgotten God, David C. Cook, 2009, pp. 135-136; www.PreachingToday.com)
Year after year, God continues to provide supernaturally. Just last year (2019-2020), they distributed over 58 million dollars ($58,015,089) in food and other relief to 25 countries around the world. (Children’s Hunger Fund 2019-2020 Annual Report, https://childrenshungerfund.org/ 1.%20Uploaded%20Content/2020_DC_2019%20Annual%20Report_101_web%20(1).pdf)
That’s what God loves to do in answer to prayer! The Bible says, “[He] is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). So when you pray, expect God to do the unexpected; expect some unusual answers to your prayers.
Then expect God to be unstoppable in keeping His promises and accomplishing His unusual purposes in your life! That was Isaac’s experience. Even though Isaac was well beyond the age to have children, God gave him children just as He had promised.
Genesis 25:24 When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb.
Just as God had promised.
Genesis 25:25-26 The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau [which in the Hebrew means “hairy”]. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob [which in the Hebrew means “heel grabber”]. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
Isaac was well beyond the age to have children, but that didn’t stop God from doing what He said He would do. Despite their age, Isaac and Rebekah had twins, and the younger tried to usurp the position of the older, even from birth.
God’s purposes and His promises are unstoppable, despite impossible circumstances and despite attempts to deliberately thwart God’s plan. When the boys grew up, Isaac himself tried to stop God’s plan to bless the younger over the younger. In Genesis 27, an old, blind Isaac tried to bless the son he thought was Esau in direct contradiction to what God said here in verse 23, but he ended up blessing Jacob instead.
Nothing can stop God from keeping His Word; so when you pray, trust Him to be unstoppable in accomplishing what He said He would do. Trust Him to come through even though it seems impossible, and even though Satan himself should try to stop you.
Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). That’s a promise, and God will keep that promise no matter what. So pray when you storm those gates against Satanic strongholds in people’s lives. Pray expecting those gates to fall and God to rescue people from Satan’s Kingdom as Christ builds His church.
That was Pete Charpentier’s experience when he led a mission’s team to Huancayo, Peru. After they arrived, the local Peruvians informed the team that those who serve the nation's department of local transportation were organizing a strike. It was scheduled to begin the next day when their mission project was also scheduled to begin. At best a strike would limit their work. Worse, it could put the mission’s team in danger. They would have to walk a mile to the mission site with potential threats lurking around every corner. So when they heard the discouraging news, the men on the mission’s team decided to walk the streets of Huancayo and ask God for a miracle.
They walked, they prayed, and then they waited.
The next day, the strike did indeed take place across the entire country of Peru—everywhere except in Huancayo. God demonstrated his power in a miraculous, mysterious way. There was no other explanation except for the power of prayer. (Pete Charpentier, Hammond, Louisiana; www.PreachingToday.com)
No one or nothing can stop God from accomplishing His work through you. His purposes are unstoppable! So don’t be surprised when he keeps His promises in answer to your prayer.
If you want to lay hold of God’s willingness, just pray, expecting God to answer. Just keep on asking God to keep His Word, counting on Him to work in unusual and unstoppable ways.
Time magazine, on January 2, 1956, published these words from an unknown Confederate soldier:
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve,
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey…
I asked for health, that I might do greater things,
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things…
I asked for riches, that I might be happy,
I was given poverty that I might be wise…
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men,
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God…
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things…
I got nothing that I asked for—but everything I had hoped for,
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men, most richly blessed.
You can be most richly blessed if you would just get on your knees and pray.
