This is the Truth Network. Encouraging Prayer. God offers an open invitation for His people to talk with Him at any time about anything. On Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray.
And now, here's James. So today on Encouraging Prayer, we're going to talk about those times when we forget to pray. Have you ever done that? You tell someone I'll pray for you and the moment comes and goes and later do you realize it slipped your mind? James, I'm so glad that we're going to go there because, you know, this has happened to me more than I might want to admit and I have the feeling, you know, that I'm not alone.
Yeah, present company not excluded. I've done the same thing. As a matter of fact, it happened to me just day before yesterday and I had a couple of takeaways from it. And the first was, what a great reminder to pray in the moment.
You know, when someone shares something that they're going through that's difficult and you're prompted to tell them that you'll pray for them, why not just take the small step of praying for them right then? You know, that way we won't forget to do it later. But the other takeaway I had was a little more counterintuitive and yet the more I thought about it, the more it kind of made sense to me.
Wow, what was that? Well, it may sound a little philosophical, but it's also very scriptural. So here it is. Why not pray for the matter you were supposed to pray for right then and there after the fact? Oh, see, do you mean later after whatever it was you were supposed to pray for, like a medical appointment or a test for a student or a surgery for a friend that was supposed to happen at 2 p.m. and you didn't get to it and it's 4 p.m. and suddenly you remember that's when you're supposed to pray? Are you saying to pray then?
I believe we can, and I know it sounds counterintuitive, but there's a reason for it. Sure, we would have liked to have prayed beforehand, but we didn't. So does that mean that all is lost? Not according to scripture, I don't think so.
How is that? Okay, well, like I said earlier, it's again not what we would think, but we tend to think what's done is done. You can't go back into the past and change something, but I don't think it's that cut and dried with God. In Matthew 22 32, Jesus is having this discussion with the Sadducees, right? They're a group of teachers who didn't believe in life after death, didn't believe in the resurrection, and he begins by telling them, you are in error because you do not know the scriptures and the power of God. And then he goes on to explain what life will be like in the resurrection, but it's the scripture he quotes that's fascinating to me. He quotes God's words to Moses in Exodus 3 6, and he says, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And of course his point is that God is referring to each one in the present tense. He's not saying I was the God of. Obviously what he's saying here is that God raises the dead, but it can also provide an interesting reminder that God exists outside of time. That's something that Jesus' words here point to.
Okay, I think I'm with you, but I need a little more explanation. Okay, well, we tend to see time as a linear event, you know, a straight line past, present, and future. But God created time, and he's not subject to it. He's not subject to anything. God exists in what you might call the eternal now.
He exists outside of time, so he can see something that happened thousands of years ago to Abraham and something that is happening right now to you and me in the same moment, if you will. Okay, I've got you. So you're saying that even at 4 p.m., God can see your friend's surgery at 2 p.m. and reach back and answer your prayer, that that surgery will be successful. Am I getting it? Yes, yes. I believe that. He says in Jeremiah 33 27, Behold, I am the Lord.
Is there anything too difficult for me? So why not? Yeah, I find this really helpful because God knows how we are. He knows we forget to pray and mess up, but that shouldn't keep us from praying, even if it's after the fact, because he is so great and so good that he can reach back into the past and answer a prayer. You know, we are making in the present.
I really love that. Well, it makes sense to me, even though the thought takes a little while to get used to, because, you know, again, we're so tied to time. And, you know, this doesn't give us a past not to pray.
You know, obviously this is, I think, something that we do, you know, in a secondary way. But, you know, God doesn't need a DeLorean to go back to the future or to the past. He sees it all and misses nothing.
So why not ask? Well, thank you, Emmett Brown. Thanks, Marty. I know it sounds a little crazy, but this is our God we are talking about. And again, what is too hard for him? What's to say that our prayers in the moment about something that happened in the past can't contribute to the outcome? And I find this helpful when I don't know what the outcome was, you know, but I can still pray. I can still ask God. And even though this stretches our faith a little, again, I think it's better to pray even after the fact than not to pray.
Wow, that's so good, James. And thanks for bringing this to our attention today because it really is another reason to pray and really just spend some time pondering this whole idea, right? Yeah, it is. It is. And on that note, would you just wrap things up for us today?
Absolutely. So, Lord, thank you as I feel like my faith is being stretched. I pray that you would give me that faith, right? Because I know I need that faith and help my unbelief, I guess, in those moments when I'm praying after the fact to just believe what is true, that you do exist out of time and you do see things. And, Lord, I look forward to processing this more with you.
I pray our audience would do the same thing and just that alone is experiencing you more. And so, Lord, help us to open our minds to what you really are and your power. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen? 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.
