Peace happens when people pray.
The judge owned a gated mansion in the Hamptons. His swimming pool was shaped like a dollar sign. He smoked Cuban cigars, wore Armani suits, and drove a 911 Porsche Carrera coupe with a personalized license plate that bore the words My Way. He was on the payroll of every Mafia boss and drug dealer on the eastern seaboard. They kept him in office; he kept them out of jail. They gave him votes; he gave them a free walk.
Sweet.
He was a crook. His mother knew it. His priest knew it. His kids knew it. God knew it. The judge couldn’t care less. He never gave God a second thought or an honest person a second chance. According to Jesus the judge was a scoundrel.
He certainly didn’t care about the widow. “In that same town there was a widow who kept coming to this judge, saying, ‘Give me my rights against my enemy’” (Luke 18:3 NCV).
We’ll call her Ethel. She had a homely look to her: hair tied in a bun, plaid dress, old jogging shoes that appeared to have been rescued from a yard sale. If the judge was a Cadillac, Ethel was a clunker. But for an old clunker she had a lot of horsepower. She was determined to escape a certain adversary. A bill collector? Angry landlord? Oppressive neighbor? Someone had turned against her. Someone had resolved to take her to the cleaners. She pleaded her case and begged for justice. No luck. She exhausted every possible solution. Finally, on a burst of chutzpah, she sought the assistance of the judge.
Every morning when he stepped out of his limo, there Ethel stood on the courthouse sidewalk. “Can I have a minute, Your Honor?”
When he exited his chambers, Ethel was waiting in the hallway. “Judge, I need your help.”
At Giovanni’s, where the judge ate lunch, she approached his table. “Just a few minutes of your time.” How she got past the maître d’, the judge never knew. But there she was.
Ethel even sat in the front row of the courtroom during trials, holding up a cardboard sign that read “Can you help me?”
During his Saturday-morning golf game, she walked out of the bushes near the fourth green. “Your Honor, I have a request.”
She tapped him on the shoulder as he walked into the theater. “Pardon me, sir. I need your help.”
Ethel also annoyed the judge’s wife. She hounded the judge’s secretary. “Do something about Ethel,” they demanded. “She’s a pest!”
“For a while the judge refused to help her” (v. 4 NCV).
One day when they said the coast was clear, he dashed from his office to his limo and jumped in the backseat, only to be confronted by you-know-who. Ethel was in the car! He was stuck.
He took one look at her and sighed. “Lady, you don’t get it, do you? I don’t like people. I don’t believe in God. There is nothing good in me. Yet you keep asking me to help you.”
“Just a small favor,” Ethel asked, holding her thumb a quarter inch from her forefinger.
He growled through clenched teeth, “Anything to be rid of you. What do you want?”
She spilled out a story that included the words widow, broke, and the phrase eviction notice. The judge stared out the car window as she pleaded for his intervention. “He thought to himself, ‘Even though I don’t respect God or care about people, I will see that she gets her rights. Otherwise she will continue to bother me until I am worn out’” (vv. 4–5 NCV).
When she finally paused to take a breath, he waved her silent. “Okay, okay. I’ll give you a break.”
“You will?”
“Yes, on one condition.”
“Anything.”
“You get out of my life!”
“Yes, I promise.” Ethel beamed. “Can I give you a hug?”
He told her no, but she did anyway.
She jumped out of the car and danced a jig on the sidewalk. The dishonest judge rode away, grumbling. And we, the readers, look up from Luke’s gospel and wonder, What is this story doing in the Bible?
A corrupt official. A persistent gadfly. Reluctant benevolence. No compassion or concern. Is there a message in this account? Is God a reluctant judge? Are we the marginalized widow? Is prayer a matter of pestering God until he breaks down and gives us what we want?
No, this is a parable of contrast, not comparison. The judge groused, complained, murmured. Yet “even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? . . . I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly!” (vv. 7–8 NLT). God is not the reluctant judge in this story. And you are not the widow. The widow in the story was at the bottom of the pecking order. She had nowhere to turn. But as a child of the King, you are at the front of the line. You, at any moment, can turn to God.
God doesn’t delay. He never places you on hold or tells you to call again later. God loves the sound of your voice. Always. He doesn’t hide when you call. He hears your prayers.
For that reason “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6).
God loves the sound of your voice. Always.
With this verse the apostle calls us to take action against anxiety. Until this point he has been assuring us of God’s character: his sovereignty, mercy, and presence. Now it is our turn to act on this belief. We choose prayer over despair. Peace happens when people pray.
I like the story of the father who was teaching his three-year-old daughter the Lord’s Prayer. She would repeat the lines after him. Finally she decided to go solo. He listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer. “Lead us not into temptation,” she prayed, “but deliver us from e-mail.”
These days that seems like an appropriate request. God calls us to pray about everything. The terms prayer, supplication, and requests are similar but not identical. Prayer is a general devotion; the word includes worship and adoration. Supplication suggests humility. We are the supplicants in the sense that we make no demands; we simply offer humble requests. A request is exactly that—a specific petition. We tell God exactly what we want. We pray the particulars of our problems.
What Jesus said to the blind man, he says to us: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Luke 18:41 NIV). One would think the answer would be obvious. When a sightless man requests Jesus’ help, isn’t it apparent what he needs? Yet Jesus wanted to hear the man articulate his specific requests.
Peace happens when people pray.
He wants the same from us. “Let your requests be made known to God.” When the wedding ran low on wine, Mary wasn’t content to say, “Help us, Jesus.” She was specific: “They have no more wine” (John 2:3 NIV). The needy man in Jesus’ parable requested, “Friend, lend me three loaves” (Luke 11:5 NIV). Not just “Give me something to eat” or “Can you help me out?” He made a specific request. Even Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed specifically, “Take this cup from me” (Luke 22:42 NIV). Why does this matter? I can think of three reasons.
1. A specific prayer is a serious prayer. If I say to you, “Do you mind if I come by your house sometime?” you may not take me seriously. But suppose I say, “Can I come over this Friday night? I have a problem at work, and I really need your advice. I can be there at seven, and I promise I will leave by eight.” Then you know my petition is sincere. When we offer specific requests, God knows the same.
2. Specific prayer is an opportunity for us to see God at work. When we see him respond in specific ways to specific requests, our faith grows. The book of Genesis relates the wonderful prayer of Abraham’s servant. He was sent to Mesopotamia, Abraham’s homeland, to find a wife for Abraham’s son. How does a servant select a wife for someone else? This servant prayed about it.
“O LORD, God of my master, Abraham,” he prayed. “Please give me success today, and show unfailing love to my master, Abraham. See, I am standing here beside this spring, and the young women of the town are coming out to draw water. This is my request. I will ask one of them, ‘Please give me a drink from your jug.’ If she says, ‘Yes, have a drink, and I will water your camels, too!’—let her be the one you have selected as Isaac’s wife. This is how I will know that you have shown unfailing love to my master.” (Gen. 24:12–14 NLT)
Could the servant have been more detailed? He asked for success in his endeavor. He envisioned an exact dialogue, and then he stepped forth in faith. Scripture says, “Before he had finished speaking, Rebekah appeared” (v. 15 ISV). She said the words. The servant had an answered prayer. He saw God at work.
3. Specific prayer creates a lighter load. Many of our anxieties are threatening because they are ill defined and vague. If we can distill the challenge into a phrase, we bring it down to size. It is one thing to pray, Lord, please bless my meeting tomorrow. It is another thing to pray, Lord, I have a conference with my supervisor at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. She intimidates me. Would you please grant me a spirit of peace so I can sleep well tonight? Grant me wisdom so I can enter the meeting prepared. And would you soften her heart toward me and give her a generous spirit? Help us have a gracious conversation in which both of us benefit and your name is honored. There. You have reduced the problem into a prayer-sized challenge.
This is no endorsement of the demanding, conditional prayer that presumes to tell God what to do and when. Nor do I suggest that the power of prayer resides in chanting the right formula or quoting some secret code. Do not think for a moment that the power of prayer resides in the way we present it. God is not manipulated or impressed by our formulas or eloquence. But he is moved by the sincere request. After all, is he not our Father? As his children we honor him when we tell him exactly what we need.
On my good days I begin my morning with a cup of coffee and a conversation with God. I look ahead into the day and make my requests. I am meeting with so-and-so at 10:00 a.m. Would you give me wisdom? This afternoon I need to finish my sermon. Would you please go ahead of me? Then if a sense of stress surfaces during the day, I remind myself, Oh, I gave this challenge to God earlier today. He has already taken responsibility for the situation. I can be grateful, not fretful.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7 NIV). Casting is an intentional act to relocate an object. When the disciples prepared Jesus to ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they “cast their garments upon the colt” (Luke 19:35 KJV). The crowd removed the garments off their backs and spread them in the path of Christ. Let this “throwing” be your first response to bad news. As you sense anxiety welling up inside you, cast it in the direction of Christ. Do so specifically and immediately.
I did a good job of “casting my problems” in a high school algebra class. My brain scans reveal a missing region marked by the sign “Intended for Algebra.” I can remember sitting in the class and staring at the textbook as if it were a novel written in Mandarin Chinese.
Fortunately I had a wonderful, patient teacher. He issued this invitation and stuck to it. “If you cannot solve a problem, come to me and I will help you.”
I wore a trail into the floor between his desk and mine. Each time I had a question, I would approach his desk and remind him, “Remember how you promised you would help?” When he said yes, instant gratitude and relief kicked in. I still had the problem, mind you, but I had entrusted the problem to one who knew how to solve it.
As you sense anxiety welling up inside you, cast it in the direction of Christ. Do so specifically and immediately.
Do the same. Take your problem to Christ and tell him, “You said you would help me. Would you?”
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said, “Put the Lord in remembrance [of His promises], keep not silence” (Isa. 62:6 AMPC). God told Isaiah, “Put Me in remembrance; let us contend together” (Isa. 43:26). God invites you—yes, commands you—to remind him of his promises. Populate your prayer with “You said . . .”
“You said you would walk me through the waters” (Isa. 43:2, author’s paraphrase).
“You said you would lead me through the valley” (Ps. 23:4, author’s paraphrase).
“You said that you would never leave or forsake me” (Heb. 13:5, author’s paraphrase).
Find a promise that fits your problem, and build your prayer around it. These prayers of faith touch the heart of God and activate the angels of heaven. Miracles are set into motion. Your answer may not come overnight, but it will come. And you will overcome.
“Prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters” (Eph. 6:18 THE MESSAGE).
The path to peace is paved with prayer. Less consternation, more supplication. Fewer anxious thoughts, more prayer-filled thoughts. As you pray, the peace of God will guard your heart and mind. And, in the end, what could be better?