Are Your Prayers Sand or Rock?
Many of us are probably familiar with the parable Jesus tells beginning in Matthew 7:24 about two men; one who built his house on sand and one who built his house on rock. Jesus’ point is that building a house on sand, while a lot quicker and easier that, is superficial and will not hold up in a storm. The sand will wash away, and the house will be destroyed. A house built on rock requires a lot of hard work and heavy equipment to dig down, but the house will survive whatever the weather brings.
We can apply this same parable to our prayer life. What is your prayer life built on? The prayer life built on sand is one that asks God for help, or for things, and praises Him when He answers our prayer as we hoped. The person with a sandy prayer life often will verbally proclaim their love and adoration for God because He has heard their prayer as evidenced by the answer they received.
You might be thinking, what is so wrong with that? The problem is that the person whose prayer life is built on sand, sees and loves God for what God has done for them, not for who God is. They are disappointed or find it hard to accept when God doesn’t answer as hoped.
So what does a prayer life built on rock look like? Hannah gives us an excellent example in 1 Samuel 1. Hannah was a woman who was unable to have a baby. In that time, there was a tremendous amount of shame for a woman who could not bear children. She goes to house of God in Shiloh to pray, begging and pleading with God to give her a son. She prays so intensely that the priest thinks she’s drunk! When she is done praying, 1 Samuel 1:18 tells us what she did, “Then the woman went on her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.” Hannah was so distraught that the priest thought she was drunk, but once she finished laying her petition out to God, she gets up, gets something to eat, and gets on with the business of life. How can she do that when she has no idea if God will give her a baby or not? She can do it because how God chooses to answer her prayer does not in any way change who He is, and she knows that. She has done the hard work and digging of learning who God is and she loves and trusts Him because of who He is, not because of what He does for her. She knows that He listens to all prayers and always responds in a way that will glorify Him and / or be for the good of those He loves (even if we don’t see that good on this side of heaven). Because of that, pouring her heart out before God is enough to give her peace and allow her to move on. Her spiritual condition is not based in the answering, but in the asking. It is enough for her to know that she has turned her issue over to God and that He will do what is best for His sovereign plan and purpose.
What foundation is your prayer life built on? Are you thanking and praising God in the asking, or only in the answering? When we understand that no matter how God chooses to answer (or not answer) our prayers is in no way an indictment on how much He loves us; and that He is deserving of all of our love and devotion just because of who He is, we will find like Hannah, we can weather whatever the Lord brings into our lives. And no matter how desperate our situation may be, we will have a peace that passes all understanding.
