The Blessing of Specific Prayers

Recently my wife's grandmother was in the hospital. She had had some bleeding that wouldn't stop and, as one can imagine, had been feeling weak for some time. Grandma Ballard prayerfully underwent some medical treatment, but to no avail.

As she laid in the hospital bed, she remembered a piece of wisdom that her pastor regularly shared with his congregants. She prayed, "God, I know Brother Larry says we should pray specifically and this is about as specific as I can get. I know you have the power to stop this bleeding and I'm asking that you do that right now."

And, thanks be to God, she was healed.

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Hearing a story from a woman's whose faith in God is firm and on display for all to see was indeed a blessing for me. And this idea of praying specifically stuck with me, though at first I wasn't sure why. After pondering it over for a while, I think I see two benefits in coming before God with specific requests, as well as two caveats.

First, the benefits:

1. Specific prayers help us to pray boldly. Too often it seems to me that Christians, for whatever reason, are shy about their requests before God. Hebrews tells us that we can draw near to the throne of grace with confidence "that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). God is our Father and He loves to have His children near to Him. And He loves to give us things for our good and His glory. If we have this confidence in Him, we can boldly put forward our specific requests, our specific needs.

We should not let ourselves get lulled into letting every prayer amount to "God, do what you see fit in this area." It is good that we want whatever God wants in a situation. But too often, such prayers are masking our true feelings or thoughts on the matter, and so we end up presenting before God a false version of ourselves, an inhuman version, even. This is ridiculous, considering God knows it all already.*

And it's also not biblical. The Psalms are replete with examples of people crying out to God with their raw emotion. They ask for things like deliverance and vindication, and they ask strongly. But there's always never any doubt that these songwriters are unwaveringly dependent on God, whatever He may answer.

More importantly, Jesus before He ends with "not as I will, but as you will," specifically asks God to "let this cup pass from Me" (Matthew 26:39). He presents His request, as strongly as He can ("if it be possible"), but leaves it in God's hands. And, we too, are not called to be unbiased in our petitions, but should present to God all of our hearts' desires, resting in our knowledge that He will answer as He sees fit.

2. Specific prayers help us to grow in faith by seeing God's faithfulness. By giving God specific requests, we can know what He answers. If I ask that God would give me a Public Relations job in Morgantown, WV, that would cover my last 9 months of living in the area, I will know sooner or later the answer I've been given. It may be "yes" and it may be "no", but I will know for sure what God has answered in a short matter of time.

And over time, I will be able to see many specific instances where God has answered "yes" or where He has said, "not this, but this" or where He has said "no." My faith will be strengthened to look over all of these answers of God and see how He has provided and how He has kept me away from things I didn't need or shouldn't have had.

To this end, my wife and I keep a prayer journal, where we can write down our many requests, the dates we ask for them and the dates that we know the answer. We hope that in a year and in ten and twenty, we will look back at answer after answer and see more clearly than we can now the story that God has laid out for us. This is the blessing of praying specifically.

However, I would also offer two caveats:

First, specific prayers are not for manipulating God. This idea should not be misconstrued as "be careful what you wish for," as though a wrongly worded request could somehow cause God to give us something unrelated to our petition or harmful to us. God is not a genie. He is a wise and loving Father who loves to give good gifts to His children. He is not looking for some minute mess-up in order to trip us up. God knows what we need and what we desire and He knows how He will answer. He invites us to come boldly into His presence and ask Him for things because He wants us to trust Him and His provision. And that provision is not dependent upon the words we use, or even words at all (Romans 8: 26)

Second, specific prayers are not so we can "name it 'n' claim it." It's not as if God is waiting for us to ask for "the 2013 Cadillac Escalade, black with top-of-the-line audio and climate controls and navigation system" instead of "a vehicle." In a way, this ties into the first caveat. We cannot manipulate God and that means that making sure we petition with detailed instructions is not going to guarantee us anything.

In addition though, a specific prayer does not necessarily carry with it any more weight in faith than a vague one (if that type of terminology is even appropriate). There may be some that would have you believe that your prayers have not been answered because you have not yet asked for something "big enough" for God. They make it seem like if you had "real faith," you would ask for the raise at work you want to the cent and trust He is going to deliver. Just as our words cannot manipulate God, so too our faith does not work in that way.

Yes, faith is important in prayer. Yes, we should ask for big things. Bigger, in fact, than an Escalade or a pay raise. How about God's kingdom coming? and the Gospel reaching all nations? Yes, we should pray for these things. And yes, we should expect that God will always answer. But, except for that which God has truly promised, we cannot expect that God will always grant our requests. He's too big and too good to give us all we desire, vague and specific alike.



*The most helpful resource I have found on prayer (outside of the Bible) is A Praying Life by Paul Miller. Delightfully good.