Prayer is a request not a demand

Scripture Read: Esther 7:1-4 Now the king and Haman came to drink wine with Esther the queen. ² And the king said to Esther on the second day also as they drank their wine at the banquet, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done.” ³ Then Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request; ⁴ for we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed and to be annihilated. Now if we had only been sold as slaves, men and women, I would have remained silent, for the trouble would not be commensurate with the annoyance to the king.”   

Application: Do we limit what God desires to do in our life? This passage has some interesting truths in it. Nevertheless Lord, today what struck me was the desire of the King to shower Esther with blessing. The passage is talking about a literal feast and the plan that God gave Esther to save her people and how that unfolds. Yet, I am drawn to a wonderful application from Your Word today. How much do You Lord, like this King, desire us to ask so You can bless us in ways that we would never expect.

John 16:24 (NASB95) “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.

This can be abused and we need to address that: the health, wealth, prosperity movement has perverted the concept of this prayer from the scripture in that they do not seek requests based on Your will and for Your glory. The tactics in their prayer is intimidation, demands, arrogance and flat out materialism. That is not what Your word is instructing us to do. Jesus was clear, He wants us to ask, the qualifier is “in My name” – that removes wrong motives, lusts and materialism. Yet, you might say “how can I ask for a BMW for the glory of God?” That’s a good question. The scripture teaches clearly in it’s whole counsel on prayer which I cannot do here, when we approach God for our needs and/or desires, we do so believing He will do according to His knowledge of what is best. That does not mean we cannot be very specific in what our exact desire may be, at the same time yielding in our words and our heart that our ultimate desire is that whatever God decides is best will be best! Jesus left us this example in the garden Mt 26:36–44, so did Paul 2 Cor 12:7–10. If I desire a nice car I can be very specific, still leaving it up to You if I get it. When we ask for things in this way and You give us our desire – the delight we have brings You glory! Father I do see You like this King, I may have one request, yet You desire to give me up to half of the kingdom. When we ask, leaving the final decision to You – You are more generous than we could ever understand. Let us ask, but in the way Jesus did. Not in a way that treats You as our genie from the lamp – serving our lusts and desires. We will destroy ourselves! Thanks Dad for knowing what we really need!

Meditation Questions: When you ask the Lord for things, do you use words like “I claim it” or “I speak it into existence”? What does that show? When you say “His will be done” what does that mean to you? When God says “no” to a request, how do you handle it?  Do you ever feel disappointed by God? What do you do with those emotions?