If I Only Knew

“And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him” (I John 5:14-15).

The Bible is filled with many verses about prayer. The one above reveals two truths of which every Christian needs to be aware. Here are the stated facts. 1. When we pray according to the will of God, He hears us. 2. If we know He hears us, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.

The operative phrase of this verse is, “…according to His will.” Which means that before we begin to pray about a matter, we need to take time to discern what God’s will may be in a matter.

Much of God’s will is crystal clear, revealed to us in His Word, The Holy Bible. Careful study of the Bible will continually reveal God will to us. Other matters might take some time as we pray, “God, please reveal your will to me in this matter.” That prayer, accompanied by a careful searching of the Scriptures, is a path to discerning God’s will in a matter. And when our prayer is aligned with God’s will, “…we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.”

One of the most telling quotes about prayer that I have ever read,  came from the late Timothy Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He said, “God will only give you what you would have asked for if you knew everything that He knows.”

At first reading something within me recoiled, I have come to identify that something as my flesh. But as I have meditated on that phrase, I have come to believe that it is true.

I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life that I have lamented the fact that God did not answer my prayer in the way that I expected Him to. Which can only mean, that I often pray with an idea in my mind about just how the answer ought to be packaged. So, I tend to believe that because He did not do it that way, He must not have answered my prayer. Only to realize at a later time, that His answer was the best answer, the perfect answer, the answer that I truly needed.

And in the vast majority of those instances, I now realize that I never paused to discern what God’s will in the matter might have been. I dashed into the throne room of heaven and threw down my request, a request that was filled with expectations of just how I expected God to act and to answer.

Today, after having served my Savior for the past fifty-two years, I have no complaints about God’s dealings with me. And from this vantage point I truly believe that God will only give me what I would have asked for if I knew everything that He knows.