1 John 5:14 speaks of the confidence Christians have in prayer, IF we pray according to God’s will. The problem with this thesis though is, we’re not privy to God’s secret will for our lives until it unfolds. Even Jesus left room for God’s secret will (‘not my will, but yours be done’).
Yet the Bible DOES provide Christians with God’s revealed will. Passages such as 1 Pet 2:15; 1 Thess 5:16-18; 1 Thess 4:3-6; Eph 5:17-18; 1 Pet 3:17; Rom 12:2-3 and John 6:39 are all explicit examples of God revealing his will for his people. As such, if we pray for these things, we can be confident that God will delight in answering those prayers for us; in his own timing of course.
Yet this should not stop us from praying for other things in life; things we cannot be sure whether God wants or not. Though in doing so, we need to keep two things in mind; (i) our prayers may not be God’s will, as we simply don’t know God’s secret will for us, and (ii) we must not pray for things God opposes.
This second thing is true for anything we ask of anyone. If I were to ask our Bulldogs supporters to turn up to church next week wearing St. George jerseys (or vice versa), I wouldn’t get a very good response would I? If you ask people for things they oppose, it does nothing more than damage the relationship. We need to ensure we’re asking for things that at least reside in the same ballpark as God’s will. And for this, we need an ever-increasing understanding of his word.
So let us not lose our confidence in prayer; but do our best to pray according to God’s will.
Brendan McLaughlin
