Rev. Xiomara Reboyras-Ortiz
Senior Pastor, Comunidad Cristiana Nuevo Pacto in DeLand, FL
“Don’t pray about it.”
“You can’t pray for those irrelevant things.”
“You ask God for the important and big things, not for the little things.”
These were some of the responses I received as a child to some of my prayer requests. And I believed, if the instruction was coming from the Christian adults in my life, then it must be true. That’s how in my early years of Christian formation, prayer became a confusing and frightening process. On the one hand, there was the fear of offending God with imprudent, incorrect or unimportant words and prayers. On the other hand, there was the confusion between my need to be heard by God and my ignorance of what was important or relevant enough to require or deserve a prayer. The confusion began to feel a lot like pain because, in my preteen years, those little irrelevant things were very, very important. The questions then were about faith… is it worth praying, believing, waiting for what you want or need? Even faith in myself; how much of what I am and desire is relevant enough to deserve to be heard by God?
With time, the pages of the Bible revealed to me some necessary truths about prayer. In 1 John 5:15: “And if we know that He hears us; whatever we ask; we know that we have what we asked of him.” Also, John 14:13: “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Finally, Matthew 21:22: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
Whatever, whatever, whatever… without condition of greatness or importance aside from myself and my need for God’s intervention in my life and in my reality. The answer to prayers was not conditioned to the relevance or greatness of the request; rather it was the relevance and greatness of the one who listened to my prayer, according to His infinite love, that determined the answer to it.
It was not the importance of my request that made God listen to me; it was through the importance and relevance that I received through the love and blood of Jesus that I could and should “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that I may receive mercy and find grace to help me in my time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
In the midst of the complicated, painful and convulsive realities of adult life and ministry, I sometimes feel like that little child, wondering if my prayer is now too big, too risky, too daring, even too irreverent. Then I hear God’s voice saying again, “whatever, whatever, whatever.” I hear God’s Word reminding me that as a mother that “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?” (Mt. 7:11).
Whatever, whatever, whatever; nothing is too small, nothing is too big NOT to pray for it. Whatever the prayer, my loving Father will be glorified.
Pray. . .Give. . .Go.