Acknowledging that God is already working in our behalf even before we pray

​Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.  In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?” —Luke 18:1-7 (NRSV)
 
In January 2019, I was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). In November of 2018, after noticing that a lymph node was not going away, I had visited my doctor who suspected either lymphoma or CLL, and he recommended that I travel to the US for surgery, diagnosis, and staging. On learning that I might have cancer, I shared the news and possible diagnosis with the church I served. However, I requested that they not pray that I get well, but rather that I will be able to glorify God in my illness.
 
Why did I make that request? I did so because I believed and still do, that I live for only one reason: to glorify God. If God wanted me well, then God had already begun the process to restore me to health. If I were not going to survive my illness, then God was going to give me the strength to approach my death in a manner that would be a testimony to God’s goodness. You see, I am convinced that faith is not looking to or believing God to do what I desire, but rather it is trusting that whatever God chooses to allow in my life would be in my best interest as God knows my best interest to be, and for God’s glory.
 
Often religious leaders ask believers to keep praying to God for help when they are in trouble or in facing life-threatening illnesses. I am convinced that we do not need to ask God to intervene because as his children, God would have already been working on our behalf. Rather than asking God to intervene, our prayer should be an expression of gratitude acknowledging his intervention, thanking God for his grace and asking that God’s will be done.
 
In the Scripture above, Jesus was not encouraging believers to badger God, rather, Jesus was contrasting the Judge from himself. In other words, this Scripture, rather than comparing the Judge and God, was contrasting their relationship, attitude, and reaction to the petitioner.
 
The judge was characterized as callous and uncaring; he feared not God nor man; he was unrelated to the widow and did not care about her status as one whose husband had died. He refused to respond to her pleas but finally gave in only because he did not want to be continually pestered by the woman.  God, on the other hand, is characterized as being just, as related to those he has chosen, cares about his children and would not delay in helping his children.
 
When the disciples were in the boat with Jesus and a fierce storm suddenly arose, they cried out to him for help and concluded that he did not care about them because in the midst of their predicament, he was fast asleep (Matthew 8: 23-27). Their response to their situation was not an expression of faith but of fear. Every appeal to God is not necessarily an expression of faith. Trust is more readily seen in waiting on God to respond in God’s time. Would the boat have sunk, and everyone perish while Jesus was in the boat, albeit asleep? In crying out to God, the disciples cheated themselves of seeing God’s intervention on God’s own initiative. Sometimes we need to stand still and see the salvation of our God. Sometimes when we pray, our prayers, like those of the disciples in the storm, are not prayers of trust, but worry prayers. Worry prayers are “prayers made by frantically anxious believers in an attempt to inform God about their situation and to get God to take care of it as they desire” (Roj2011). We, too, worry that God does not care. Our prayers are also at times reminders to God because we fear that God has forgotten about us.
 
We need to learn that we can trust that God has got our backs and that God is not unaware of our situation. Jesus himself affirmed this when he said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29-31). So regardless of the situations which confront us—sickness, disease, disappointments—we can believe that God does not need us to tell him when and how to respond. God is always at work around us.

​—Rev. Dr. R. Osbert James, OBE
Minister and Moderator
Presbyterian Church in Grenada

​He is married to Anna and the father of Jonathan and Chrystal.