Once upon a time: A king wanted to marry a certain man's daughter. Her father demanded a huge dowry. The king told him, "Go to my treasurer and ask him for whatever you want." The man went to the treasurer and asked an outrageous sum. The treasurer ran to the king and said, "Great king! This man is trying to cheat you! Even a small fraction of what he asks would be sufficient for this dowry!" But the king replied, "No. Give this father what he asks. He does me honor. He proves by what he asks that he believes me to be both rich and generous." The end.
When I heard this story, the great king was Alexander the Great. But in searching the internet, I have found this story only in sermon texts, so I am lead to assume that it's in no way true. Once upon a time.
The same week I heard this sermon, I overheard a couple of guys talking. "It never hurts to ask. You are allowed to say no. If I ask for your soul and you say yes, I will demand it from you. You can say no, but most people don't. You'd be amazed what you can get just by asking."
Then later that same week, a friend of mine gave me a book called The Power of a Praying Wife. It's an ok book. I don't know how I feel about some of the things the author talks about in the exposition sections (gender stereotypes ahoy!), but it has some Bible verses and prayers at the end of each chapter (which are really the point anyway), and those are always good.
Anyway, I feel like someone's trying to tell me something. Hmm...
Praying is kind of hard. I mean, it really shouldn't be. Yet somehow, I struggle with the simplest things. I'm bad at asking for help. It's not (usually) because I think I can handle it on my own, but because I think I must handle it on my own. I think my problems are too small for God to care about, next to global warming and the war in Syria. I think that I don't deserve for God to make exceptions for me, since everybody in the world is probably dealing with this same problem their own dang selves. I don't want to be selfish. I don't want to be a bother. And while I don't mean to say that God can't solve my problems, I guess I'm kind of implying that he won't. Which is just as bad.
The father's request showed that he trusted the king to be both wealthy and generous, that he could and would give what was asked. Shouldn't we have that same trust in our heavenly king? Shouldn't I?
We don't have to worry about bothering God. He has infinite attention. We don't have to worry that we're too small. He has infinite love for each of us. We don't have to worry about being selfish. He has infinite wisdom to know if our requests are good for us or not.
God rewards the bold. In the story that sets up the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God tells Abraham of his plan. In one of the bolder (and honestly, more annoying) prayers in the Bible, Abraham barters with God for the life of his cousin Lot. He bothers God. He words it pretty strongly, too. "Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" he says. It's kind of shocking. Can he really do that? Can he just call God out like that?
Turns out he can. Not only does he walk away un-smote, but God rescues Lot and his family from the destruction.
There are a couple Psalms like that, too, where the writer lays it down and says, "Hey, this is making you look pretty bad, God. I deserve better, and you're not doing right by me."
Yikes! I don't know if I could do that. Still, the Bible tells us that we need to be confident when we pray, and that in so doing, we find help in times of need.
Prayer is important, yo. I don't do it right, and I don't do it often enough, but boy does it keep popping up in the Bible. It's as if it's something God wants us to know about.
Bonus verses!
Ephesians 6:18 "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people."
Luke 11:5-13 God says, "Have you tried asking? If you bunch of idiots know how to feed your children, you think I can't do better?" Or something like that.
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