What Praying Without Ceasing Definitely Is Not and Some Thoughts about What It Might Be

First Thessalonians 5:16 has got to be one of the most intimidating verses in the Bible. I first encountered it in the old King James Version:  “Pray without ceasing.” 

“How is that possible?” I thought. “That can’t be a good translation. Maybe one of the other versions will provide a loophole.”

• ESV:  Pray without ceasing

• NIV:  Pray continually

• NIRV:  Never stop praying

• Message:  Pray all the time

Not much help. No matter how you translate it, I guess this verse is pretty clear.

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During all three summers between my college years, I worked at an awesome 4-H camp on the eastern end of Long Island. Between my first and second summers, I came to know Jesus personally, and when I returned for year two, I wanted to let all the counselors know about my new-found faith.

At the end of each summer, the camp hosted a farewell thank-you banquet for the staff. We especially looked forward to the part where the counselors give each other humorous awards. Mine for my first “Christian summer” was the “Practice What You Preach” award, signed by Jesus Christ. Ouch!  Not so funny. Apparently, I did a pretty good job of talking about my faith but that was about it.

To rectify this shortcoming, I resolved during the following summer to CONSCIOUSLY think about God all day long. I figured this would increase the likelihood that I would remember to act more like a Christian. So I stopped whatever I was doing every ten minutes or so and thought about him. If I forgot and went twenty minutes, I would confess my sin and promise to do better.

Well, that practice lasted about a day and a half before I realized it would quickly make me a candidate for a straitjacket. A variation of this obsessive practice that some people follow is feeling they have to pray about EVERY decision, down to whether they should have oatmeal or Raisin Bran for breakfast or what color socks to wear. Fortunately, I never succumbed to this pitfall but I know some who have.

So if these crazy behaviors are what praying without ceasing is NOT, what SHOULD it look like? I’m sure there are many different ways to practice praying without ceasing, but here are three possible applications.

1. God has blessed me with hundreds of wonderful friends and acquaintances. Throughout the day, some of them pop into my head. Or I might see someone who physically resembles a friend. In that moment, I can shoot up a quick prayer asking God to bless my friend and accomplish in their lives what they need. And I also pray about a particular need I might be aware of.

2. As I hear a news story reporting about some kind of tragedy, I can ask for God’s presence, peace and grace for those affected. I can also pray as important political policy issues are reported on – that leaders would honor God with their decisions.

3. Author Ken Boa suggests that a way to remind ourselves of God’s presence and glory is to specifically notice and give praise for at least one aspect of the natural world each day. This can simply be contemplating an unusual cloud formation, the intricacies of a leaf’s veins, or the exquisite velvety fur on a Weimaraner puppy.

These three practices should be permeated with grace – no self-judgment or condemnation if you don’t perfectly carry them out.

Another aspect of praying without ceasing is keeping your relationship with the Lord so open that you’re receptive if he wants to show you something in particular. Going back to the socks example, although you shouldn’t obsess over the color decision, if – for some odd reason – God does want you to choose blue over black, you should follow his prompting. This is a trivial example, but it illustrates a mindset of receptivity to things Holy Spirit may be trying to get through to you.

I hope you see the difference between my 4-H camp OCD application of praying without ceasing and the grace-filled practice of enjoying your walk with the Lord and responding to whatever he brings my way.

A final thought. In addition to “praying without ceasing” as described here, spending dedicated times in prayer is an important part of the Christian life and one I need to do more faithfully.

The ABSOLUTE BEST Bible Passage for Resolving an Age-Old Debate

NOTE: Since this message from January 24, 2018 is one of my favorites, I am repeating it .

God has blessed me with wonderful Christian friends from various faith traditions:  Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Charismatic, non-denominational, Wesleyan, and others.  Although we all agree on the central issues of the faith – what C. S. Lewis would call “mere Christianity” – we sometimes have different “takes” on certain principles of Christian living.  

A core issue for believers concerns how “demanding” we can be in prayer.  Jesus himself promised several times that we can ask anything of God and expect him to answer as long as these prayers are “claimed” in the context of God’s sovereignty.  After all, he is the God of the universe, and I’m not, so he may have outcomes I can’t see from my limited perspective.

But this raises a vexing problem.  How can I pray confidently, expecting an answer not knowing if what I’m asking is really God’s will?

Some Christians stress our unfettered access to our loving heavenly father and boldly ask for miraculous interventions.  If you extrapolate this position to the extreme, it can almost border on the “name it and claim it” false theology – insisting that God apply one of his promises exactly the way I want it to look.  

Other Christians are more reserved and, following Jesus’ example in the garden, stress prayer’s “nevertheless, not my will but yours” aspect.  Taken to an extreme, this position approaches “practical deism.”   That is, although I ask God to intervene on my behalf, I really don’t expect him to do anything, so he more or less becomes a non-entity in my daily life.

How do we resolve this tension between perhaps being presumptuous on the one hand and being “of little faith” on the other?  

There is no better Bible passage to address this than Daniel 3:17-18.  Enemies of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego ratted them out to Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar for not worshipping the golden image the king had set up.  The penalty?  Incineration in a furnace hot enough to instantly kill the soldiers who threw the three into it.

Given one last chance to reconsider, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it . . . .  But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”   

That’s it!  The perfect blend of believing God’s power and a willingness to continue trusting him even if his will doesn’t match my personal agenda.  If God could make the Milky Way and the Grand Canyon, and if he could bring Jesus back from death, certainly he is able to suspend the laws of nature to preserve the three from the flames.  But will he?  I can and should ask for the miraculous, but God may be after other things.  That’s his business.  My job is to trust him even if my prayers are not answered precisely as I think they should be.  So ask away, and rejoice regardless of the outcome.  

Thank you for this transformational insight, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego!

2 Awesome Prayer Practices

Although we can never fully understand all the facets of prayer, we can and should continue to make prayer a vital part of our lives. This week, I’d like to offer two creative ideas I hope will enrich your prayer life.

Pray Alphabetically

Although I used to sleep very soundly for most of my life, in recent years I’ve developed the unfortunate habit of waking up about 3:00 – 4:00 a.m. and not being able to get back to sleep. Once my brain “kicks in,” I know it’s all over. Mind you, I seldom worry. Instead, I think – sometimes excitedly – about what the new day holds. Regardless of my mental state, the result is the same:  I’m awake.

Several years ago, I read about a lady who addressed her middle-of-the-night sleeplessness by praying for people based on their names, i.e., starting with someone whose first or last name begins with the letter “A,” them moving on to a “B” person, then a “C” person, and so on. I adopted this habit bout a year ago.

Beyond praying for current friends, I’m amazed how God brings people to mind who I may not have thought of for years. Because I’m trying to keep my brain in neutral as long as possible so I can get back to sleep, I don’t linger very long on any name. Somehow this practice is so soothing, that I sometimes only make it halfway through the alphabet before returning to dreamland.

Unfortunately for “J” people, I know dozens of Jasons, Jacobs, Jims, Justins. Joes, Jeremys, etc. so they don’t get much “airtime.” At the other extreme, I know only one person with an “X” name:  Ramona Xiques, a girl from high school I took on one date. So, she shows up almost every time, assuming I stay awake long enough.

Break Your Prayer Requests Down

We all have a handful of very close people we regularly pray for, often every day. Everyone has layered, complex needs. When praying for these very special people, I often find myself either praying very general, high-level prayers or racing through a whole list of requests without much real engagement. If you do the same, try this instead.

Set up a multi-day “rotation” where you pray specifically for a different aspect of their lives each day. For example:

·       Day 1 – Pray for their spiritual life and walk with Jesus

·       Day 2 – Pray for their relationships

·       Day 3 – Pray for any of their current challenges, opportunities or struggles you know of

·       Day 4 – Pray for other life circumstance needs:  work, health, finances, etc.

Of course, on any day you can pray beyond the particular category, and these are just suggested groupings. You might want to include fewer or more days or develop different categories. Be creative in how you structure your prayers for these dear friends and family members.

These practices are certainly not “magic,” but they might expand your desire to pray for others. Let me know what you think.

Special Edition: Your Responses on the Dynamics of Prayer

My last blog post invited you to comment on various aspects of prayer, specifically:

·       The relationship between praying without ceasing and falling into empty repetition

·       The “quantity” of prayer

·       The specificity of prayer

·       The intensity with which we pray

That post generated lots of response with many wonderful insights. Submissions came in as comments on my web page and through various social media platforms. Thanks to all who contributed your ideas!

Instead if creating a new blog post with my own thoughts this week, I would rather spotlight your inspiring insights. You will be blessed if you take the time to read through them.

Two themes that several mentioned were:

• Rather than being just “a thing,” we should view prayer as part of our relationship with God, something we live out.

• We shouldn’t forget that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, advocating and “correcting” our prayers as necessary.

Hard to argue with either of these ideas!

Scroll down to my last my post, dated August 6 and click on the  “comments” button at the bottom of my August 6 post.  

And I have reproduced immediately below some excerpts from social media submissions. Keep reading.

Does God hear the long agonizing prayer of lament and distress more than the simple daily prayers uttered in my life? Do numbers and words really make a difference? I don’t know how it all works but I think persevering in prayer matters. Often I just wonder does it really matter….yet I find myself praying sometimes without even thinking….it’s like breathing. We can’t live without it.

Jennifer Williams

These years with (my daughter) Heidi’s cancer, bone marrow transplant and soon-to-be kidney transplant have had me in “ceaseless prayer” for her. Then there are all the folks praying that I update. I honestly see prayer as more and more of a mystery…Somehow God wants us to make our requests known to Him. Yet He will work according to His plan. We can pray as a single individual and as a community, baring our hearts and souls which I believe God will hear and respond to rightly.

Twinky Satterthwaite

What about enjoying getting to know The Father better by just conversing with Him! Not asking Him for things all the time, but just talking and listening to Him. Listening to the promptings of His Spirit.

Sonny Lallerstedt

There are 4 things that seem to characterize my Intense Prayers.

1.  Shorter the better

2.  Said out loud 

3.  Conversational

4.  Alone

The HS fills in the blanks. . . . Said differently, we can’t mess up a prayer, even if it’s short in Specificity or Quantity.

Dennis Dixon

Ps. 37:4  . . . calls us to "delight" in the Lord. I know this verse is often misused, but when looked at in context, it shows that God desires our delighting in Him, not as a "get what we want" from a worldly sense, but from an eternal sense. The context shows that in spite of life's challenges, we are to want Him, and look forward to being with Him for eternity.

. . . .

Certainly empty repetition is not good, and I am often guilty of that.  I try to be specific, but don't overdo it. I am aware that God certainly knows the need for which I'm praying, so it's not like I'm trying to fill Him in on the details. But I think specificity is more for us than for Him. It causes us to think about the need, and it also allows us to see how God responds to the need.  But we can overdo it.  I think about how we pray in ways that might not be in God's perfect will. I would have been one to pray that Joseph be released from prison.  But that would have not been God's plan. Maybe better to pray that Joseph would experience God's blessing and that he persevere in faith.

. . .

I do like to think that if I get hung up about quantity, intensity, specificity, and language, I lose the most important aspects... relationship, trust, belief, dependence. It's about having a conversation with God who already knows what I and others need, but wants me to regard Him with the awe and intimacy that's involved in the most valuable relationship we have.

Steve Simpson

My prayers always have the same pattern and sometimes with different words or names and situations. I think if we get too caught up in trying to make our prayers unique, we might miss our mark on the “why” we’re talking to God in the first place.

Chris Ebert

One of my favorite lessons on prayer is Nehemiah 1 & 2 with emphasis on 2:1-6. Nehemiah prays with fervor and specificity when he learns of the condition of Jerusalem. The narrative intimates that others were also praying. And he demonstrates constancy when the king, perhaps unexpectedly, asks him to make a request. We may be sure that he did not spend ten minutes in prayer before responding. “He prayed to the Lord and answered the king” in one motion.

Jason Renier

I Need Your Help Figuring This One Out

“Why don’t we just buy a rabbit’s foot and rub it for good luck before each meal to save time?”

Annette and I had just gotten married, and we were in the process of expanding our Cru ministry support base. We were in her hometown of Adrian, Michigan in the shadows of Detroit. Unfortunately, the country was experiencing an economic downturn, and auto-dependent Southeastern Michigan was particularly hard-hit. Consequently, we suspected reaching our financial goal would be a long slog.

I had been on Cru staff for seven years, and support development was a perpetual challenge. I would always start out optimistically doing my best to trust God with the results. But as the weeks sometimes turned into months, I would get ground down, moving closer and closer toward internal despair and even low-level panic.

As a new husband, I wanted to provide strong spiritual leadership and demonstrate full trust in God. Three times a day, as we sat down to eat, one of us would ask for God’s blessing on that day’s activities and our overall support development efforts. Of course, we were sincere and serious, but before long, our prayers pretty much became “memorized” words and almost incantations. Hence Annette’s astute comment about the rabbit’s foot.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus criticizes pagans who worship other gods trying to win them over through their excess of words.

When you pray, don’t be like the people who don’t know God. They say the same things again and again. They think that if they say it enough, their god will hear them – Matthew 6:7 (ERV)

Their approach showed they were treating their prayers almost like magic spells.  Annette and I weren’t guilty of that obvious excess, but we were drifting toward “empty phrases,” to use the ESV ‘s wording from Matthew 6:7.

Here’s where I need your help. Tell me your thoughts on the balance between:

• Praying without ceasing (1 Thes. 5:17) and being relentless in prayer as Jesus urges in two parables:  the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8) and the man who needs replenishment of his cupboard for an unexpected late-night visitor (Luke 11:5-8), and

• Falling into empty repetition and trying to manipulate God like the pagans did

About a year into my Christian life, I determined to show my devotion to God by consciously thinking about him as often as I could. If I recognized that if I hadn’t thought about him in the previous ten minutes, I stopped to seek forgiveness and vowed to do better moving forward. This practice lasted about two days before I realized that continuing in that mode would result in my being fitted for a straight jacket.

I’ve concluded there are three aspects to prayer:

• Quantity – This is how frequently I pray about a specific need and how many people I get to join with me. Of course, God hears the prayers of every single believer, and Jesus references two agreeing in prayer (Matt. 18:190). But how much “better” is 100 agreeing?

• Specificity – At one extreme are the “bless everyone in the world”-type prayers. Some people simply run through a list of names, asking God’s blessing on those individuals. At the other extreme are highly specific and detailed prayers. Stormie Omartian has written more than a dozen books on prayer spotlighting the power of a praying husband/wife/parent/grandparent/etc. These books are filled with hundreds of specific topics for prayer, covering every aspect of people’s lives: their spiritual lives, their physical health, their friendships, their work lives, etc. How much “better” is this approach? 

• Intensity – We can either casually run through our list or spend extended time – sometimes agonizing – in prayer. Is my prayer more effective if I am emotionally worked up?

How do all these dimensions work together?

Even though I am a “left brain guy,” I am not looking for a formula. We can’t reduce prayer to specific “preferred” words, particular body positions, or minimum required length. But I am I’m trying to understand prayer dynamics a little better.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how these factors interact. What are your thoughts on the questions I raise? Please weigh in, but remember, no formulas!

If God Knows and Controls Everything, Why Pray?

It’s an age-old question. If God is sovereign over absolutely everything and already knows what he is going to do, what’s the point of praying? Tough question. I have five thoughts that shed light on this.

First, as R. C. Sproul explains in his excellent short book Does Prayer Change Things? the very question reveals a limited view of what prayer is about. Asking this presumes that the only reason we pray is to get God to do things for us. But, as Sproul points out, open, two-way communication is central to any significant, successful and satisfying relationship – like that between a husband and wife or between two dear friends.

As we grow to increasingly understand God’s majesty, power and love, our hearts should overflow as we tell him how great and transcendent he is and how absolutely privileged we are to know him. Then, as we see our own sinful state which stands in stark contrast with his holiness, we should be motivated to freely admit our tragically flawed lives and thank God for the forgiveness he made possible through Jesus’ death and resurrection. 

So, prayer isn’t like Aladdin’s lamp – merely a mechanism to get your every wish fulfilled. It’s really about fostering your two-way relationship with God. And it’s only within the context of that relationship that you bring your requests forward, recognizing that you are not a magician trying to manipulate God into doing your bidding.

There is a second reason why prayer is “valid” even though God controls absolutely everything. One of the more difficult-to-grasp attributes of God is that he exists “outside of time.” We live in a linear world where one minute follows the next and events unfold in succession. God is not limited like that. For him, there is no past or present or future. Somehow, they are all simultaneous. Of course, we can’t even begin to comprehend what that means.

But we can think through at least one implication of this fact:  even though God has prior (from a human standpoint) knowledge of what he will do, it could be that his “prior” decision was actually shaped by the prayer you are praying today. So, even though God knew from the very beginning of time (as we know it) what would happen, your prayer now may have factored into his decision to shape events in your present and future. I know. This causes my brain to hurt too.

A third reason we should pray even though God controls everything is simply because there are dozens – if not hundreds – of commands to pray in the Bible. If God tells us to do it, we should. This alone should settle the issue.

Reason four is that we have abundance evidence that prayer was and is vital in the lives of the people that God uses. This is true for all the “Bible heroes” as well as faithful people throughout the ages, right down to this very day. We have hundreds of thousands of examples.

The final reason we should pray despite God’s sovereignty may be the most powerful of all. Jesus himself regularly spoke with his father. And, to recast the old saying, if it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me. Case closed.

So, there you have it. Five perspectives why prayer should be a vital part of our lives despite the fact – and in reality – because of the fact – that God controls everything. Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of the unspeakable privilege we have of talking with a God like that and – in the proper context – bringing our requests before him?

While I Was Speaking FOR God, God Spoke TO Me

I have to admit, I’m never quite sure what to think when someone says that God spoke to them. There are many examples where the supposed message must have gotten a bit garbled because what God allegedly promised didn’t happen. Look no further than the recent predictions by several high-profile Christians who announced that God told them Donald Trump would get reelected.

Although I’ve never heard God’s voice audibly, I’ve experienced maybe six or eight times when I felt God undeniably communicated directly with me. This was either through a profound sense of his presence accompanying a message laser-focused for me at that precise moment or through a series of incredible circumstances that lined up so clearly that there was no missing the point. (My recent blog about how God led us to buy the California vacation house falls in this latter category.)

Even though clear and direct messages are rare, I have also experienced the Holy Spirit frequently communicating thoughts and ideas that have the fingerprints of God all over them. Although I can’t say with 100% certainty that these are always from the Lord, over the decades as I have followed these promptings, I have learned to recognize and trust them.

I had just such an experience a few weeks ago when, on the Sunday after Christmas, I had the privilege of delivering the message in all three services at our church. One of my main points was distinguishing among three attitudes about our relationship with God:

• “I have to” – I “have to” obey the rules, tithe, read the Bible, pray, etc. This drudgery often results in cheerless legalism.

• “I want to” – This is better, but still includes an element of “performing for God” because he expects me to.

• “I get to” – This recognizes the great privilege we have to live according to the way God intended us to.

For the “I get to” part, I was rattling off a list of things I get to do:

• I get to learn more about God by reading the Bible.

• I get to use the resources he has given me to help others understand God’s love.

• I get to be his representative here to help other people see how awesome God is.

• I get to tell other people how Jesus has changed my life.

During the third service as I mentioned, “I get to talk to the God of the universe through prayer,” I felt the Holy Spirit telling me I was highlighting the wrong part of that sentence. Instead of saying I get to talk to God, the emphasis should be that I get to talk to the God of the universe. Think about that. I get to have a relationship with the one who:

• created absolutely everything in the world

• holds it all together

• knows every time a sparrow dies

• loved me enough that he sent his son Jesus to die for my sins

• inexplicably touched my heart and changed my life

This insight gave me a tiny inking into how Job must have felt when God asked him where Job was when God laid the foundations of the earth, if Job could send lightning bolts on their way, whether Job could bring forth the constellations in their seasons, and so much more (Job 38-40).

This is the God I get to know personally. What an incredible thought! Think through the implications of the fact that this is who you get to communicate with.

So, yes, God spoke to me as I was speaking for him. And I got to experience that.

When God Uses You to Answer Someone Else’s Prayer but Doesn’t Answer Yours

“What’s your shirt about?”

I had just seen a guy by the dumbbell rack at LA Fitness wearing a bright red tee shirt with the words “Spiritual Battle” in bold black letters on the back. He got a funny look on his face and mumbled something about getting it at a retreat. Of course, I knew there had to be some kind of Christian connection, but this was a good conversation-starter. As we chatted, Paul revealed he was working through some pretty big personal issues.  

We got together for lunch a few days later and then about every other month for the next year or so until he moved. Over that time, through me and others, God solidified a lot of important things for Paul, and today, he is a vibrant Christ-follower, having a strong impact for the Kingdom.

During our third or fourth meeting, Paul revealed some interesting details. First of all, the reason he was taken aback when I initially approached him was that no stranger had ever spoken to him in the gym before. Secondly, he wasn’t sure why he wore the “Spiritual Battles” shirt that morning. In fact, it was the first and last time he ever wore it. But most interesting was the fact that the very morning we met, he had prayed specifically that God would bring someone into his life to help him sort through the challenges he was facing. So, I was a direct answer to his prayer. How cool is that! 

Think about the timing factors that had to fall into place for our relationship to get launched. I go to the gym a couple of times a week on different days and at different times. The day we met, I was there unusually early, so would could have easily missed each other. Then there was the shirt, only worn once. And finally, there was his specific prayer that very day for someone to talk to. God worked all this out behind the scenes, and I was literally an answer to his prayer.

As I look at my own life, I see a mixed bag of answered and unanswered prayers. Just last Saturday, November 10, marked the 48th anniversary of my conversion. There are people for whom I’ve been praying for nearly half a century and who seem no closer to the Lord than they were back in 1970. And then, despite my fervent prayers, there have been the major relationship-related, work-related, and ministry-related disappointments. What’s up with that? Why hasn’t God answered my prayers?

I’ve concluded two things about these contrasting situations – being used by God to answer someone’s prayer and God’s seeming silence about some of my own. First, he certainly can orchestrate circumstances in miraculous ways in response to our prayers, just like he did for my friend Paul. But, for reasons known only to him, he often doesn’t. Secondly, I can be OK with that if I view the situation in light of God’s perfect, 100% love for me. As Tony Evans says, if someone actually dies for you, don’t you think he’s on your side?

So, seeing God miraculously use me to answer someone else’s prayer helps me trust his power, and knowing his perfect love for me helps me relax when I don’t always get my way. Can you say you’ve gotten to this point? I’m not there yet, but I’m getting closer.

The Absolute Best Bible Passage for Resolvoing an Age-Old Debate

God has blessed me with wonderful Christian friends from various faith traditions:  Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Charismatic, non-denominational, Wesleyan, and others.  Although we all agree on the central issues of the faith – what C. S. Lewis would call “mere Christianity” – we sometimes have different “takes” on certain principles of Christian living.  

A core issue for believers concerns how “demanding” we can be in prayer.  Jesus himself promised several times that we can ask anything of God and expect him to answer as long as these prayers are “claimed” in the context of God’s sovereignty.  After all, he is the God of the universe, and I’m not, so he may have outcomes I can’t see from my limited perspective.

But this raises a vexing problem.  How can I pray confidently, expecting an answer not knowing if what I’m asking is really God’s will?

Some Christians stress our unfettered access to our loving heavenly father and boldly ask for miraculous interventions.  If you extrapolate this position to the extreme, it can almost border on the “name it and claim it” false theology – insisting that God apply one of his promises exactly the way I want it to look.  

Other Christians are more reserved and, following Jesus’ example in the garden, stress prayer’s “nevertheless, not my will but yours” aspect.  Taken to an extreme, this position approaches “practical deism.”   That is, although I ask God to intervene on my behalf, I really don’t expect him to do anything, so he more or less becomes a non-entity in my daily life.

How do we resolve this tension between perhaps being presumptuous on the one hand and being “of little faith” on the other?  

There is no better Bible passage to address this than Daniel 3:17-18.  Enemies of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego ratted them out to Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar for not worshipping the golden image the king had set up.  The penalty?  Incineration in a furnace hot enough to instantly kill the soldiers who threw the three into it.

Given one last chance to reconsider, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it . . . .  But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”   

That’s it!  The perfect blend of believing God’s power and a willingness to continue trusting him even if his will doesn’t match my personal agenda.  If God could make the Milky Way and the Grand Canyon, and if he could bring Jesus back from death, certainly he is able to suspend the laws of nature to preserve the three from the flames.  But will he?  I can and should ask for the miraculous, but God may be after other things.  That’s his business.  My job is to trust him even if my prayers are not answered precisely as I think they should be.  So ask away, and rejoice regardless of the outcome.  

Thank you for this transformational insight, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego!