As I hectically prepared to leave the house this morning, I remember wrestling through this question: How should I pray? I thought again about my friends who are also facing serious health challenges. Several I know have bleeding hearts as they pray for their unborn babies or care for their young infant who also struggles with birth defects or for their child who is fighting against cancer. How are they to pray? What are the biblical foundations to hold up our prayers?
Our toddler was scheduled for a modified barium swallow (MBS) and esophagram, where I fed him barium and exposed him to 2 back to back procedures with radiation. I held off scheduling these procedures for several months because it gives him yet another 2 doses of radiation; I’ve stopped counting. Our cutie was born with a hole in his larynx. His esophagus was not connected to his stomach and he also had an impassable constriction in his small intestine (among some other malformations). They needed pictures of his swallowing function and of his esophagus to see whether there was narrowing from his surgery at birth. If the test results were bad, he would need 2 more new surgeries. He is already going under anesthesia in a week for his annual MRI. At his last MRI, he didn’t resume breathing on his own when the anesthesiologist pulled the anesthesia drugs (scary). They had to use a serious drug (racemic epinephrine) to revive him and he recovered.
As I prepared him in the radiology room, I asked God to shield him from today’s radioactive damage. After we finished, the radiologist told me his finding, right the in the room.
God gave us all that we asked for: a normal MBS with no aspiration and no narrowing of his esophagus!
I verbalized my praise of Jesus several times in the room, hoping that the technicians would praise Jesus with me, since He is his healer! I worshipped with words of thanks to God for His mercy over our sweetie. No surgeries for him!
But I remember that there have been times that we didn't get what we asked for and this can certainly happen in the future….
So here are those morning seed thoughts, now blossomed into a clear bouquet of beautiful lessons in my hand. So colorful, so precious, so personal to me are these lessons because they were given to me by my heavenly Father, whom I am learning about anew. The following was His manna for me on this stressful day.
So how are we to pray?
First Flower
God is right here.
We don't pray as if He doesn't know what is happening, as if He needs to be informed. He is right here, walking right alongside me!
Second Flower
We don't pray as if we need to twist His reluctant arm.
We all know the story of the leprous man who came to Jesus, desperate for healing, imploring for mercy from the only One who could heal him. I just learned today from a sermon that it was from the deepest parts of His inner being that Jesus was moved to compassion. Derek Prince taught that the word compassion was not there, but the best way to translate this depth of feeling from the Greek was that it was with the greatest feeling/compassion with which Jesus healed this man. After this leper interacted with Jesus, he walked away a cleansed man. What an off-the-charts transformation this one man experienced, on so many levels.
Third Flower
Fear has no place here.
On an earthly battlefield like today, it looks as if the outcome is uncertain. Fear stirs up feelings of anxiety and shouts, ”Will the enemy win?" Though the “what ifs” scream for attention, my heart’s violent storm begins to calm as I pray and remember God. He brings me under the shadow of His wing and hides me safely away from the opposing gale. As I remember that I can never leave God's Presence for one moment, all of the love, certainty and truth that is mine, because I am His, begins to take root again in my thoughts and translate into my feelings. My all-powerful, heavenly Father clads me with the armor of His peace and strength; I can now move forward in confidence through this valley, leaving fear silenced behind me.
Fourth Flower
Pray, so that truth would bear weight on my heart, my mind, my spirit and my body.
I need truth to lead me on the battleground on which I am standing. Through prayer, I get to pray His will into reality, into my sphere of influence. God is my heavenly Father, Who created the universe. It is He Who split the Red Sea, for His people to walk on dry ground. It is His Spirit Who raised Christ from the dead; He lives in me! I am His and He promises to always fight for me. Nothing shakes Him. He is good. He wants me to be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, to be strong in the Him and in the strength of His might. I have an entire armor to put on! Christ is my armor! He delights in me! He will never leave nor forsake me. He loves me and my child, with unlimited, loyal love. I know this because of the inestimable worth of His Son’s blood, which He poured out because of He loves us! I can confidently ask for anything according to His will and know that I have His ear. He promises to give me whatever I have asked of Him in His will (1 John 5:14-15)!
Fifth Flower
Following Abraham’s and Jesus’ footsteps, I am to pray with faith in Him and His promises.
Faith isn’t an abstract concept, like a set of doctrinal concepts I’m to adhere to. Instead, faith is having a confident trust in the real God Who is with me. Both Abraham and Jesus have gone before me, laying down such a clear path for me to follow.
Abraham was commended by God, Who credited him with righteousness because of his faith. God would make good on His promises, no matter what, Abraham must have thought. He obeyed, up to the point of ultimate parental pain, willing to obediently sacrifice his only son whom God had given him by promise. Since God had promised to make a nation and bless all the families of the earth through this son, Abraham knew that God could raise his only son from death to fulfill His promises (Rom 4:20). That’s incredible trust in God. What a clear path before me when I face uncertainty head on, because I, too, walk with this same God. I can count on His promises and rest on the certainty of His goodness.
Our heavenly Father loved me and all people so very much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins. God Himself did what He did not ultimately require of Abraham. As Jesus walked the path of trust as this sacrificial Lamb, He trusted the Abba, holding nothing back, surrendering His will completely to Him. In the face of pain and death, Jesus verbalizes His complete trust in the goodness of His Father to do what is best and to fulfill His promises when He said, “Father… nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
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What if my goals/prayer requests are not aligned with God’s goals for me today? What if all of this is a battle for who will gain my trust? What if these circumstances are like the refiner’s fire and God wants refined silver with no dross in me, where I choose to trust Him and not live in fear? What if faith in God’s goodness is at stake, just like it was for Eve when she was tempted by satan in Eden?
I will choose to believe that God is good, that He loves us and that no matter what outcomes I face, these things remain unshakable.
I have many things I want God to do in my life (like keep my kids healthy and alive), but these are things that I need to hold with an open hand, with complete surrender. Why? If I tightly grip things in my heart, the whites of my knuckles show that I’ve made them into soul idols, even if they are good things. Doing so also shows that I want to be God and I don’t think He’s doing a good job. Having good things as idols chokes the joy, love and life out of my relationship with Him. It leaves me feeling alone, lost and without hope. I never want anything, anyone or any dream/plan to take God’s place; God alone is worthy to sit on the throne of my heart. I want God to be God. Of course, He doesn’t need my permission to be God, but I want to trust in His goodness so much that I don’t kick and fight Him if I don’t agree with how He decides for things to play out in my life. He has wisdom that I don’t have. His goodness teaches me to loosen these fingers and stretch my hand wide.
Walking this steep, upward path of medical emergencies and surgeries has been difficult. Since our little one has a shunt in his skull, everyday I have to watch for shunt failure; we could lose him in a day if things turned badly all of a sudden. But really, a healthy child could could be on the brink of death just as easily. It all goes back to trusting in God’s sovereignty and holding onto His goodness. He has numbered each of our days and we can trust Him.
I want for Jesus to be my model. I, too, want to love and trust my heavenly Father as much as He did, no matter what outcomes I receive in this life. When He prayed, “Father… nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done,” God’s good will took Jesus to the Cross and He died. And God was still good.
Jesus lived the First and Greatest Commandment before us. He loved the Father with all that was in Him, at all costs. I’m writing this post for me to come back to and remember these lessons the next time I’m on this familiar battlefield. I hope this helps you when you find yourself there.
I love how Psalm 84 leads me through my Valley of Baca (trouble)…
How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
As they go through the Valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.
O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed!
For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
O LORD of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!