I see friends in real pain and hurting around me.

And I hear the promise of the Word of God:

John 14:13-17 NKJV

“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”

So we might ask ourselves a few questions when we have prayed and “asked in His name”, yet we have not seen the “that I will do” part.

I might ask myself things like,

• “Am I ‘praying’ or ‘asking in His name’ wrongly?”
• “Am I expecting Him to do it in my own imperfect way or timeline — when His way and His time is better and perfect?”
• “Is what I’m asking for not going to bring glory to the Father in the Son?”
• “Am I hindering His prayers on my behalf because I do not love Him and I am not keeping His commandments?”
• “Have I not been given this spirit of truth that will abide with me forever?”
• “Is God slow to answer?”
• “Does God really care about me?”
• “Does God even exist?”

Those last questions can even feel scary to put down on paper if we have a genuine fear of God — but He knows that these are real questions and doubts that people have in their hearts. So it does us no good to hide them in the shadows.

I wonder how often we are satisfied with rattling these doubts around in our minds but we have been unwilling to bring our petitions to God?

I wonder how often we have been satisfied with taking our requests to God — but not truly speaking the promises in His name, loving Him, eagerly living His commandments, and wrestling with Him over how we might reconcile His promises and what we do not yet see. Yes, this is the life of hope in what is not yet seen — that we walk by faith in what we have seen and already know about Him.

I wonder how many of us have feared a wrestling match with the Almighty, and we have avoided even coming into His courts? Is it because we thought that we might be unwelcome, that we might be unworthy, that we might find an angry God who does not love us but only demands and take from us?

I love how so many encounters between the spiritual and mankind start out with something like “Do not be afraid”.

The door is open. Will we enter into real prayer? Into calling on His Name, into speaking His Word and His promises, into a willingness to wrestle in an active, conversational, confessional, powerful, personal, connected prayer life? Or will we be satisfied with running off to do our own thing with what God has given us like a prodigal — maybe even forgetting to send God a “text and a selfie” type of prayer once in a while just to “check in” — instead of wanting Him involved and engaged as part of our lives?