Asking the Right Person

Karen Stevens’ mother Jane Cook died recently after a tough bout with cancer. During visitation at the funeral home on the day before the funeral, I said to Keith Stevens, “You had a good mother-in-law, Keith.” He agreed with me. Then he told me a story about something Jane did before he and Karen got married.

Keith started dating Karen when Karen was 18, and they got married when Karen was 20. After they had been married several years, Jane confessed to him that she, like most parents in similar situations, did not think Karen was old enough to get married. So, in order to get Karen to hold off on getting married, she promised her that she would buy her a new Mustang if she would put off the wedding for a year. Karen refused the offer. When Jane told Keith that story several years later, Keith said to her, “You asked the wrong person. If I had known about that new Mustang, I would have put it off for a year.”

In order to get a request granted, it has a lot to do with asking the right person. It certainly works that way with prayer. Have you ever wondered how it would be if God had voice mail and you had to deal with all of those menu options?
“If you would like to speak to Gabriel, press 1.
“For Michael, press 2.
“For a directory of other angels, press 3.
“If you’d like to hear King David sing a psalm while you’re on hold, press 4.”

The purpose of prayer is to get in touch with God Himself. Aren’t you glad you don’t have to sift through the menu options in order to do that?

Nothing is as important as a personal encounter with God in prayer. Dr. Andrew Bonar once said, “I lay down this rule—not to speak to any man until I have spoken to God.” That’s a great rule for beginning the day.

Another thing that is important in prayer is to ask for the right thing. I heard of a little boy who did a whole series of things to get on his mother’s nerves. The climax came when he threw a ball across the room and broke a vase. With that, the mother dispatched her son to his room with these instructions, “You go pray about this and see if things can go better.” Later, she went to his room and asked if he had prayed. When he assured her that he had, she said, “Good, maybe this will help you not misbehave any more.” He responded, “I didn’t ask God to help me not misbehave. I asked Him to help you put up with me.”

What you ask for and whom you ask have a lot to do with the effectiveness of prayer. We need to allow the Spirit of God to screen our requests, and then we need to bring our requests to the Father. Isaiah assures us, “Then you will call, and the Lord will answer. You will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I” (Is. 58:9).