{"id":1930,"date":"2011-08-05T23:39:24","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T23:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=1930"},"modified":"2011-08-05T23:39:24","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T23:39:24","slug":"about-a-pearl-of-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/1930\/about-a-pearl-of-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"about a “Pearl of Wisdom”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

I had a question about today’s “Pearl of Wisdom.” It was: ‘Every prayer you pray without seeing results, you get weaker in God<\/em>.’ I didn’t really understand it. It seems it’s implying we should only pray for what God leads us to pray for, otherwise, they are our own prayers\/desires, and might not be His, thus, He may not choose to answer them. I’ve had prayers not answered, but I assumed that either, a) God had a better plan, or b) He would answer them in His timing, and I needed to be patient. What do you think?<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks,<\/span><\/p>\n

Anna<\/span>
\n==============<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi Anna.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We should be led by the Spirit in our praying as much as in everything else; otherwise, we run the risk of becoming disappointed and discouraged. This was Preacher Clark’s point. John wrote,<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

14. And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us;<\/span>
\n15. and if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have made of Him.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And James said,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

You ask, and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may consume it on your own lusts” (Jas. 4:3).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Preacher Clark was approaching the subject from the angle of these two apostles. Of course, there may be cases when a prayer is denied only because of God’s vastly superior wisdom, such as when Paul prayed for his “thorn” to be removed. But even then, Paul was looking at his thorn from the vantage point of his own desires, not God’s. So, what John and James said would even apply to Paul’s prayer.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

It is good to remember that God is always right. If we do so, we will not become bitter if God does not do some things we ask Him in prayer to do. But a life of continually offering up unanswered prayers is a self-willed life, and that kind of praying, being in the flesh, wears down our faith and robs us of our spiritual strength. Preacher Clark was right. It is best to be so led of the Spirit that we know what to ask for before we pray because, to turn his quote around, “Every prayer you pray that gets results makes you stronger in God.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey Pastor John, I had a question about today’s “Pearl of Wisdom.” It was: ‘Every prayer you pray without seeing results, you get weaker in God.’ I didn’t really understand it. It seems it’s implying we should only pray for what God leads us to pray for, otherwise, they are our own prayers\/desires, and might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}