Leave The Results To God

Scripture is clear:  pray boldly. 

But bold prayer is not to be confused with presumptuous prayer that demands a particular outcome.  Bold prayer is confidant prayer that places confidence in God -- not a particular result.  

Bottom line:  I won’t always get what I want when I boldly pray, but I will always get what I need.  And guess who knows what I need:  God and God alone.  

Some of the boldest prayers ever prayed, were the prayers of Joshua and the Israelites, as they surrounded the wicked Canaanites, occupying Jericho.  But it's important to note the origin of such boldness; it stemmed from radical surrender to God.  You see right before the famed story of Joshua and Jericho in Joshua 6 is the often neglected story of Joshua and Surrender in Joshua 5.   Encountering the Lord’s representative, the commander of the Lord’s army, Joshua is confronted:  ‘Take off your sandals [Joshua.  Surrender] -- for the place where you are standing is holy [ground]…”  And Joshua did so.  (Joshua 5:15). 

We must do likewise.  We must take off our sandals.  We must surrender.  For the place where we are standing is also holy ground. 

And so yes pray -- pray boldly.  But yield to God. For as the writer of Hebrews reminds us:  it was “…by faith the walls of Jericho fell….”  (Hebrews 11:30).  Translated:  it is by giving up, by total surrender to God that the biggest obstacles – the steepest challenges – the unconquerable problems – are indeed conquered after all.

I remember a time in my life when I prayed boldly for an old girl-friend to come back to me, after rejecting me.   To be candid:  I made quite a scene, weeping and wailing, wagging my finger at God, insisting He restore the love of my life. Period.  But there was one problem: I wasn’t alone.  You see as a young pastor I was boarding in a church member’s house; to be precise:  Link and Estelle Bazzle’s house.  And so on more than one occasion, Estelle witnessed my hysterics; the weeping and wailing; the demands toward God.   But Estelle was also praying, sensing my praying wasn’t praying at all; it was insistence.  And so Estelle confronted me; gently, compassionately, Estelle confronted me.   “Paul,” Estelle said. “We've really had enough hysterics; enough weeping and wailing.  I think its time to give up; I think its time to stop wagging your finger at God.”

Not bad counsel:  it’s time to give up; to stop wagging your finger at God.  I mean wherever we’re demanding of God, we're not praying to God; so...it’s time to ‘back off’ and ‘let go.’  For though we’re to be bold in prayer, we’re to never be presumptuous in prayer, yielding to God and God alone.   For in the end:  'God only knows' what’s needed for us, what's healthy for us, what's best for us.

And so yield to God!  Take off your sandals and surrender.  For God can be trusted to topple any Jericho -- as we trust His timing, His counsel, and His sovereign plan.