Chapter 4 A Lack of Expectation and “Book keeping”
Let’s return to our continuing analogy.
You’re walking down the street, and I stop you in the middle of the street and ask you to go into the grocery store and buy me a sandwich. Suppose you do that. Now suppose that when you came out of the grocery store and crossed the street to give it to me, you then saw the I was nowhere to be found, that I had completely disappeared.
What would you have concluded from that?
You would have concluded either 1.) that I did not believe you would actually perform the activity I requested of you, or 2.) that I didn’t really care much about the request in the first place.
Question: Would this make you more or less inclined to perform a request like that from me again?
If there is anything that is more true about the prayers human beings make to God, it is that most human beings do not bother to stick around and find out if their prayer were answered or not. We never bother to find out if our prayers are answered in any way because we never remember what exactly we prayed for. So then we lose interest in prayer, and God loses interest in hearing our prayers. No wonder the average church’s prayer meeting is the least attended meeting of all!
Well, what is to be done? Well, what saith scripture?
“And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua” (Exod 17:14,KJV)
“Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.” (Mal 3:16, KJV)
Duuuuuhhhh! Of course!
If I write down my prayers in a notebook and hang onto the notebook, I will have a written record of exactly what I prayed for.
To what end, though?
“Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.” (Mark 13:33,KJV)
You’re walking down the street, and I stop you in the middle of the street and ask you to go into the grocery store and buy me a sandwich. Suppose you do that. Now suppose that when you came out of the grocery store and crossed the street to give it to me, you then saw the I was nowhere to be found, that I had completely disappeared.
What would you have concluded from that?
You would have concluded either 1.) that I did not believe you would actually perform the activity I requested of you, or 2.) that I didn’t really care much about the request in the first place.
Question: Would this make you more or less inclined to perform a request like that from me again?
If there is anything that is more true about the prayers human beings make to God, it is that most human beings do not bother to stick around and find out if their prayer were answered or not. We never bother to find out if our prayers are answered in any way because we never remember what exactly we prayed for. So then we lose interest in prayer, and God loses interest in hearing our prayers. No wonder the average church’s prayer meeting is the least attended meeting of all!
Well, what is to be done? Well, what saith scripture?
“And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua” (Exod 17:14,KJV)
“Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.” (Mal 3:16, KJV)
Duuuuuhhhh! Of course!
If I write down my prayers in a notebook and hang onto the notebook, I will have a written record of exactly what I prayed for.
To what end, though?
“Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.” (Mark 13:33,KJV)
“My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.” (Ps 130:6, KJV)
“I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” (Hab 2:1-2,KJV)
“Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;”
(Col 4:2, KJV)
You write your prayers down to remember them. You remember them so that you can be able to tell if they ever get answered. It is only by remembering your prayers exactly that you can determine if they got answered or not. So you write them down.
Then you have to keep your eyes peeled to see if your prayers are in the process of being answered. It does you no good to write down your prayers and remember them exactly if you are not in the habit of actually looking around and seeing if you prayers are being answered.
Lets take this very common scene from married life.
Every morning, the husband is sitting at his accustomed place at the breakfast table, sitting behind his opened newspaper. He’s oblivious to all that’s going on around him, except for the fact that his doesn’t have his cup of coffee yet. He asks his wife “Honey, is the coffee ready yet?” A minute or two later, still behind his newspaper, he will ask the same question again, and he will be very lucky - like millions of other husbands across the country - if his scalp is not scalded off by having his cup of coffee poured on his head because the coffee cup had been sitting in front of his newspaper for a whole minute!
If we are not used to paying attention to what is going on around us, it will do us no good to record and remember what we asked of God. Watching must go with praying. You must simply move from thinking that you are dealing with an inconsequential thing to realizing that you are dealing with the most real thing there is in the universe. You must put on the green eyeshade of the bookkeeper and the telephoto lens of the serious naturalist.
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