Skip to main content

The Best Prayers



I love to pray biblical prayers.  I’m grateful that God is willing to listen to my babble and lists, but I feel even more connected to Him in prayer when I pray His own words back to Him.  Typically I pray the Lord’s Prayer two times a day.  I try not to do it as a ritual, but as an example of how Jesus tells me to pray.  I reflect on the meaning of each phrase to me as I say it. 
I have been drawn to the Prayer of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28.  It has become a model for me.
 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

              The prayer stands out to me because she is among the people Jesus met who displayed great faith. Most of the time Jesus was stunned by the lack of faith He experienced from others, yet ere was a Gentile woman showing not only faith, but great faith!  How did she get there?
               
                Her faith grew from her great need.  She had a daughter who was suffering terribly.  There is nothing worse for a mother.  I’m sure the mother could have handled her own suffering better than watch her daughter suffer in this way. 
               
                Her faith grew from her rational mind.  In her efforts to seek a cure this mother had accepted the diagnosis.  Her daughter was demon-possessed.  Where do you go for help with a problem like that?  There is only one place religion.  Who was the best in the world at that time?  Her search had brought her to find out about a man named Jesus.  She discovered that He was Lord and Son of David.  She had done her homework.  Remember, she isn’t Jewish so she had to search and learn about Jesus from others.  She learned how to ask Jesus for help.  She asked in the best way—acknowledging Who He is and asking for mercy, naming the problem.  Nevertheless, Jesus was silent.

                Her faith grew from her love for her child.  Though the disciples were ready to send her away, she would not stop asking for the healing she sought.  Her love for her daughter inspired her to keep asking in the midst of the seeming lack of an answer.

                Her faith grew from intimacy with Jesus.  When Jesus spoke to her she humbly knelt before Him.  His words could have been mistaken as a rejection.  Rather than feel rejected by what she didn’t fully understand, she drew closer to Jesus and got right up close.  Her prayer was less wordy—Lord, help me she said.  Sometimes the best prayers have less words and more confidence in the one to Whom we are praying.
                Her faith grew from conversing with Jesus. When Jesus gave the undeniable theological truth—her openness with Jesus helped her know the answer was simple, all she needed was a crumb to be dropped.   Jesus was amazed by her faith.  I want to follow the example of her faith.

Copyright © 2014.  Deborah R Newman teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Pilgrimage that Started with Tears

                Who would think I would shed tears deciding to set out on a wonderful journey that I have longed to take for many years?   Before I was ready to fully accept God’s invitation for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, I had to journey to a place of agreement between what my soul wanted and what the Lord wanted for me.   For years I have been declining opportunities to travel to Israel—not because I didn’t want to go but because I wanted to go with my husband by my side.   I know that God could have arranged that for me, but instead He asked me to accept that He wanted me to be willing to go and leave everything behind.   When I was asked to make a decision about going on a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, God gave me this verse in answer to my prayer -- Debi, observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are cr...

The Effects of the Holy Spirit

The Effects of the Holy Spirit               Can you imagine that the very Spirit of God is given to humans who believe in God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection?  Just thinking about the Holy Spirit makes me realize that I can do better.  I am not left to my own resources when it comes to praying, having faith, obeying God, doing what He asks me to do.                 No one understands the depth of sin’s effect on a soul better than God.  Every action He takes has been to reduce the effect of evil that was unleashed into our world when sin was merged into His perfect universe.  We never saw it coming. Even Adam and Eve did not see what hit them.  God has counteracted with the effect of faith after sin by enabling sinners to be affected by His ho...

One Year

            One week, one month, and now one year has passed since my world was turned up-side-down.   At first time felt like an eternity, each day the reality that my beloved husband was no longer with me here on earth drug on and felt like it would never resolve.   Now that a significant amount of time has passed, it doesn’t seem possible that we have lived through one whole year without him.   How did we get here?   Where have we been?   How did the earth revolve completely around the sun?   We are surviving.   We are grateful.   We have had a lot of help from heaven and from earth.             I have discovered more intimately how death is a major spiritual formation in our lives.   Whether we are deeply spiritual or not, facing death forces us to consider spiritual realities.   Our souIs are opened to a deeper u...