Asking
Earlier this week I was taking stock of my own faith journey, and doing some careful stocktaking, as I suggested yesterday. Suddenly it hit me: I don’t ask God for things like I used to, especially in the realm of healing. As a new Christian I was delighted and excited to go to God with my needs (and the needs of others). I had a real anticipation about what God might do, and really did see some quite marvellous answers to prayer.
Sadly, some of that simplicity has been lost, and I think I know why. For one thing, I’ve been appalled by the acrobatics and shenanigans of some television evangelists whose emotional appeals make God look like a cosmic vending machine. The idea that your healing is more likely if you flash your visa card in the direction of one of ‘God’s appointed messages’ is nauseating. And then, to be brutally honest, there have been disappointments that have eroded my confidence. Watching a good friend walk through horrendous suffering and then die, long before what seemed to be his time, and despite prayer and fasting by literally thousands of people has made a casualty out of my ability to ask. Perhaps I don’t ask more because I can’t bear the potential disappointment.
Whatever the reasons, I want to learn to ask again. As Jesus was hotly pursued by these yelling blind men, he asked them a question that has a screamingly obvious answer – what did they want from him? Their blindness was plain to see, but he wanted them to articulate their request, to be very specific.
Let me ask: have you asked God for something lately?