Prayer and Trust

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Okay, James, I'm not sure why you want me to answer this question, but because today's talk is about prayer and trust, I'll go ahead and do it. So go ahead and ask the question so our listeners can hear it.

All right, well here it is. Ravi, are you able to float? What do you mean, like float in water without anything to help me stay up?

That's exactly what I mean. So how about it, can you float? I think so.

If I have water, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I mention all this because trust and prayer are issues that go hand in hand. Have you ever prayed about something and found yourself telling God, I trust you with this, but just a few minutes later, you find yourself running back to him again with the very same thing? Oh yeah, like, you know, five times a day already. And usually it's because I'm praying about something I really want with a need in my life or, you know, or someone I love.

Yeah, I get it, and me too. And I wanted to talk about this today because sometimes we can have a mistaken idea about prayer, and that is, if we're really praying right, we'll just give it to God and let it go, and we'll have this perfect peace and not keep yanking it back again. And I believe that's actually a popular misconception about how prayer works and how prayer and how life works. So we're kind of slaying a sacred cow here, but I can point to one person in the Bible who especially makes this point clear.

So now you do hear that a lot, and so much that I think we often really do believe that's how we're supposed to be. So who were you thinking about in the Bible, and how does he show us something different? Well, Jesus.

Oh wow! So first of all, let's be clear, there's no better example in Scripture of anyone who trusted the Father more. But trusting the Father doesn't mean that you aren't moved by the circumstances of life. Jesus was continually moved by the circumstances around Him, the needs of others, His desire for Israel to turn to the Father, and just think about His agony that night in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed, Abba, Father, allow this cup to pass from Me. Now, I find that request particularly interesting, that Jesus prayed that way at all, because all of His life He knew that was what the Father's will was for Him. And He talked to the disciples about it so many times, and they didn't understand what He meant when He said that He'd be crucified and give His life for us. But even though He knew that, and had known it for so long, that still didn't stop Him from praying about it. Oh my goodness, I see what you mean. I mean, that's true. It didn't, and I suppose if you applied that rule we were just talking about, where some people say you just give it to God and let it go, someone could even be critical of Jesus. So, you know, something else may be really going on there. And here we come full circle to what we were talking about before. Sometimes the needs that we're carrying in our hearts are so great that they just won't float up to heaven and stay there.

You know, they have legs that sink, if you will. And now, that's not to say that sometimes God won't give us the gift of faith to trust Him with a circumstance or a need and just let it rest there. You know, He does that too, but the point is that if Jesus prayed like this, we can be a little less hard on ourselves when we have a pressing need.

Now, no need is greater than the one Jesus faced in that moment, literally carrying the weight of the sinful world on His shoulders. But Jesus shows us how to live, He shows us how to pray, and He lived breathing prayer. And don't you think it's safe to say that sometimes God uses the difficult circumstances in our lives to just keep us right there with Him, to keep us dependent, to keep us close? Oh, absolutely, because that's the only way we can know His peace is if we run to Him and really cast our cares on Him. Right, because He cares for us, as Peter tells us in 1 Peter 5.

So there's nothing that we can't tell God. There's a situation that we can bring before Jesus who intercedes for us continually before the Father and think, well, you know, God's just not going to care about us. And you'll also notice how quickly there's sort of this peaceful resolve that comes as Jesus prays.

He says, yet not as I will, but as you will, Father. And in that moment, He shows us that we can still be deeply troubled and yet come to that place of just walking with God through it. And that's the beauty of prayer.

And the example of Jesus, it's this wonderful gift God has given us. And when we cling to Him in our circumstances, He will give us more of His peace. But to get there, we really have to cling.

And there's nothing wrong with clinging. We're made for that. We're supposed to come back to Him again and again, you know, maybe praying about something from an entirely different angle than we ever did before. Maybe that's when a breakthrough will come, you know, so that He wants us to keep praying and trusting Him, not the circumstances.

Because He alone is our peace. Well, I think this will really be helpful for our listeners today, James. Well, let me finish up with a prayer that will do just that.

Stay close and keep coming back to Him in prayer. So, Jesus, thank you for James's insight today. It makes me think, wow, it's okay to just be honest. You know, I'm struggling here, God. So help us to be honest with you in our relationship that when we're struggling, that we can feel like we can come here and admit that we're struggling and know that it will bring us closer to you and get us to that point of faith. And that point of peace is only you can do it. And I ask this in Jesus's name. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.