Magnificent Prayer #297
Magnificent Prayer #297
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
Numbers 23:19
Remember that faith is not a strange sensation that comes over you in rare moments, a magic thrill from something in the minister’s voice, a mystic trance to be reached once in a while, then lost for weeks or years. It is a sturdy confidence that God will keep His promises, confidence enough to walk out on them and live there, although the world expects them to crack and crumble under you any day.
VANCE HAVNER
Pray About It: Refuse to allow your feelings to measure the effectiveness of your prayers. God does not put you in a trance nor give you outward signs that you’ve been heard. Further, such dependencies are the enemy of faith. Faith is the sturdy confidence that you’ve been heard, based on God’s promise in His Word.
Satan is a master when it comes to orchestrating feelings in Christians. He loves it when we get those goose-bump sensations, because he knows that when they leave, we’ll assume we’re no longer connected to God.
This doesn’t mean that we’re to leave our emotions outside the prayer-room door, rather it means that emotions such as joy, tears, love, or excitement may follow our prayers—but they may never lead our prayers or offer us proof that we’ve been heard.
Stop considering your emotions and simply regard your will, which is the real king in your being. Is your will open to God? Does your will decide to believe? Does your will choose to obey? If this is the case, then you are in the Lord’s hands.
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
From the book
